Turning silver gray (To escape truth, disappear)
by Sweetbriar
Summary: Liz always knew a return to Roswell was in the cards. Five years after she left, Fate plucked that one from the deck. AU inspired by 'Conspiracy' (details inside).
1. The pages of self made cages

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any part of this series. Nor am I the intellect behind Bennie's fic _Conspiracy_. If Bennie were to find and read this, I sincerely hope that the production of the piece is permissible; all attempts at contact have turned up returned-to-sender e-mails.

**Summary**: Liz always knew a return to Roswell was in the cards. Five years after she left, Fate plucked that one from the deck. AU inspired by 'Conspiracy' (details inside).

**Author's Note**: This story is loosely inspired by the universe of Bennie's story _Conspiracy_. Here is a link: I highly encourage you to read it, and others on the site. (**http**)(**:**)(**/**)(**/**)(**bennie**)**.**(**tvheaven**)**.**(**com**)(**/****conspiracy01**)(**.html**). Just remove parentheses.

A basic summary: Roswell is home to refugee Antarians. Liz is a foundling, but not told the truth about her community's alien nature. King Max and the Antarians did not want her to leave, but Liz wanted to go to college. Eventually, the sense that she was not part of a large secret in her loved ones' lives led to Liz running away.

She and Max were never together, though there was a spontaneous comfort-kiss-slash-lustful-encounter type scene (referenced later in this story). In Bennie's story, an added 'Epilogue' involves Liz returning some years later and Max finally letting her in on the secret: this story can be seen as a reader's interpretation of a different 'epilogue' (though it evolved into a multi-chapter story).

Title of this story is from the song "Song of Los" by Apparat.

Title for this chapter is from the song "Bones" by MS MR.

* * *

…

_The pages of self made cages (Hard times for dreamers)_

…

Five years.

Half a decade has passed since I left Roswell, and so much has changed in me. I learned so much that sometimes I think my head is full of dense weight. I thought life was difficult in a cage.

Now I know. It could have been worse.

Sometimes I think about my last conversation with Max, and I wonder how close to the edge we came. How close he was. How close I might have been, without even realizing it.

Have you ever repeated a conversation in your head? Thought of comebacks when the moment passed? I did, a lot, after Max drove away, hurt by my honest denial. After I climbed on that freeway-bound bus. I never said goodbye to my family or my friends.

I imagined recording a cassette tape and mailing it back to Roswell. My dad would carefully slot it into place in the small radio on the back counter, turning the knob up so my voice sounded like it came from a throat. My mom would accept my apologies with tears in her eye. I'd send a verbal hug to Maria and Alex, a nod to Michael's unwavering presence. And Max would sit and listen, the hurt of my departure having faded.

"You couldn't keep me here," I scripted in my head. "Sure, you could keep my body in this town, but in the end that's all you'd have. A body. I couldn't live like that. I'm human. I needed space, I needed air, I needed to breathe and be free for a while before I could commit."

* * *

I always stop there. Commit. Commit what? My mind, my heart, my soul? (All three?)

Five years ago, I left my house with no goodbye, the possibility of love with no hesitation, and all because I thought that I had no choice. I felt trapped and watched and so tired of my own paranoia.

But it turns out, I wasn't wrong about a conspiracy.

Roswell has a secret. It's a secret held in the hearts and minds of a people who had everything to lose and nothing left to give.

I know now that they could have stopped me. They could have forced me to stay at the command of the man in charge. He could have done it himself.

But he let me go. It must have taken everything he had, must have become a constant weight and stress that he could never escape. A worry in the back of everyone's mind, unspoken dread clinging to every memory of me. What I might say, or do, or think if I ever found out. What could happen to me in the big world beyond the defensive borders of their small town.

I'm glad I know that now. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

* * *

Four years ago, I went to a job interview and my world changed.

After I left Roswell, I spent a year scrounging and saving, working odd jobs and living in an old woman's attic (she had an extra pair of hands around the house and I had a safe place to sleep at night). I finally achieved my dream to wander halls of knowledge beyond a high school in New Mexico.

It wasn't everything I expected. It was more, and it was less. It was transitory, a place I belonged to by default, a large school where I felt the lack of close community. The air felt wrong—like a missing vibration, a piano tuned just a little sharp.

Then, in-between odd jobs and with rent coming due, I received a letter with a job offer from a particularly dubious, curious source: the federal government.

Something made me dial the phone number—likely the college student with looming debt, or perhaps the lonely student on an overwhelmingly large campus, or maybe even the girl who was sick of being excluded from secrets. So I dialed, bought a smart suit, and found myself standing in an office while the entire universe warped and shifted around me.

And when I was offered a job, I accepted without hesitation and was put in a training program for two years. They demanded a lot and I gave it my all.

The more I learned, the more I felt that I owed my hometown. I owed myself. All those years, I never understood why secrecy, why paranoia, why I felt like an outsider. And now that I knew, I realized that I did have a place. This career gave me a place.

Science is important to me. Always was, always would be. Between further academic classes, I was sweating, working my muscles to unforeseen physical peaks. I got my hands dirty and my knees scraped, my back sore and my lungs aching. But six months in, I traversed the obstacle courses like a pro.

My interviewer-hirer-supervisor, Brody, was a great mentor. He pushed me academically, always encouraging me to absorb as much as my human brain could manage. And he was always there for me on the toughest days, ready with explanations and rebuilding the confidence I'd lost somewhere along the way.

It took determination to leave Roswell and everyone I loved. But confidence I lacked, and it was confidence I gained, under the tutelage of an alien's host body.

* * *

Yes, that's right. Brody, Larek's host body.

Larek visits Earth to check up on Antar's lost colony. Sound crazy? It's true. When he brought me into my interview, sat me down, told me—and then proved it—I knew I'd just been let in on something big.

The bigger shock was learning about my hometown being that very colony.

And I was the lone human.

* * *

My parents didn't abduct me or anything. Larek told me that he's kept a distant but careful eye on the colony ever since it was rediscovered by his planet. Antar was a neighbor, and it was taken over by a parasitic alien lifeform. While some were able to evacuate, the parasites spread quickly and wiped out the majority of the Antarians. The rest of the confederation—formed by a system of five plants orbiting nearby suns—banded together to destroy the parasites and stop them from spreading to the other planets.

They were successful in stopping the infection, but at a cost: by isolating and destroying the ecosystem they thrived on. The price of winning was Antar.

One of the refugee ships blasted through space in Earth's direction before Antar fell, but lost contact with the remaining confederation due to pre-liftoff damage. They made it here, began building a new life at their crash site, and made an effort to remain under the government's radar. King Zan, whose essence was saved to transfer into a body which could survive in this ecosystem, leads them now. Keeps them safe.

Antarians are a peaceful people, which is how the parasites were able to take their home planet. They can defend themselves, but tend towards harmony. They are an empathic race and prefer avoiding conflict—retreat instead of attack, withdraw instead of defend. Nurture is highly valued among their people.

* * *

The evidence Larek has found indicates that my birth mother was a teen runaway. She gave birth in the desert, and brought me closer to civilization—but perished before she could make all the way into town, weakened by blood loss. If she had been in a hospital, she might have lived with medical attention.

But instead, she was running from something. Heading nowhere in particular.

We have that in common. Something in our blood that makes us seek freedom. She headed to the open skies and wide spaces of the desert. I retreated to the towering heights of a layered city. But we both ran away, our very bones unprepared to settle, needing the movement of uncertainty.

* * *

I was lucky to be found and they were afraid I wouldn't live for the first week of my life. Yet I grew stronger, and the couple who found my birth mother and I in the desert wanted to keep me.

The Antarian people may have debated whether to keep me or turn me over to humans. But my parents wanted me. Larek—under the guise of a human traveler—saw to it with his own eyes that I was wanted. Not that he ever doubted I would be, not when he knew King Zan and what kind of a leader he was. He says he even knew my parents back on Antar. The confederation was in close contact.

I asked him recently why he kept his distance. Larek said, "They still mourn for the home they lost and know they can never return. They deserve the chance to rebuild where they are, to lead their lives in peace."

Under the serene response, I heard the tumultuous, "They do not know the full story of Antar's loss. We had to destroy so much of what they loved that it is only a barren rock. Let them keep their memories whole."

I also heard a fondly weary, "Zan does his best for his people with what little he has, and he is still very young in this lifetime. They deserve a little bit of security and peace."

That's what we're for.

* * *

Larek picked his agents in a very particular manner.

We all endured a bit of what I call "mind-melding". With some detailed information about location and a prepared area, Larek can press on consciousness from his astonishing distance. It is not intrusive enough to read thoughts, only to gain a sense of trustworthiness. Those who passed his test were invited onto a project secret from every branch of the government, details vague even to supervisors who grant us clearance. There are men and women previously from the CIA and the FBI of the United States, from every conceivable top-secret organization globally, and a few specialists Larek dug up from who-knew-where.

The mind test was disquieting. He told me later he already knew I could be trusted. It was merely a matter of whether I was ready to know the truth or not.

I was. And I never made him regret bringing me in.

Our group was called the Safeguard. Larek came up with it. Brody funded it, fully aware of his own role in the whole situation and overly enthusiastic about it—he was a UFO nut before Larek's first contact, which to him was like a dream come true. He was a self-made, insanely lucky millionaire, who used his wealth and resources to build a small, quiet empire whose only priority was to ensure that Roswell remained a safe place for refugee Antarians.

Safeguard was not able to control everything the government did, but we ensured that Roswell remained a safe zone. Zan remained unaware of our existence, a fact that troubled but also relieved Larek. Zan was his friend, but the young king wasn't ready to contact the confederation. The ship was damaged upon landing, and there was a whole saga Larek did not want to talk about involving military confiscation and Antarian recovery efforts. (Several people involved –military, concerned citizen, reporter—were members of Safeguard now: though older and unable to do some things, they were very useful in other arenas).

The Antarians on Earth had not sent a message to their allies. Larek didn't know if the transmission equipment was damaged, but he assumed that if they had not found a way to fix the problem they weren't eager to contact the confederation. They were still grieving and confirmation of Antar's loss would hurt too deeply.

Larek wanted to protect Zan. I thought his motivation was a bit noble, but a lot misguided.

Zan deserved to know the truth. Larek couldn't protect him from that forever.

* * *

Belonging to Safeguard had always meant that a return to Roswell was in the cards.

Unsurprisingly, one day Fate plucked that one from the deck.

* * *

The convoy of SUVs in a shade darker than midnight, eighteen long and blind-siding the speed limit, snaked a single line down the 285 to Roswell.

I sat in the middle, somewhere between car 4 and car 9, phone glued to my ear as I coordinated the party. I was skipping out on a research project, but academics were far from a priority.

On the screen before me was a live feed from traffic cameras. They were able to capture the city hall—and the street, lined with a few dusty army vehicles and guarded by tough-looking agents.

Some of these men and women were just following their leading agent's commands. Others knew what they were really doing in Roswell.

We would deal with that later. Right now, I cared more about the citizens of Roswell. The entire population was under surveillance, with jeeps and tanks closing off all access routes. People were being restricted their homes, those who had been on the streets led to a secured area. I had no way of knowing with certainty who was where, but infiltrating agents confirmed several key targets being held in the city hall.

Zan was one. The king's second-in-command Rath, head of security. Vilandra, his sister and chief advisor who managed public concerns. The king's estranged wife Ava, who remained queen in name to her people and good friend to the royal family. Oeri, Rath's wife and curator of their planet's art forms and cultural artifacts. Unconfirmed but possible were Lomeh and Xon, royal guards.

Larek spoke quickly in my ear, feeding me information and directions. When he was done I snapped my phone shut and picked up a radio.

"All teams, standby." Confirmations came through. "Alpha through Echo come into the center of town. All others, split to your pre-arranged coordinates and follow instructions given on-base. Call in once secure. Teams Delta, Echo, and Bravo, head to your prearranged coordinates and deal with rogue agents. Team Charlie, station yourselves at your prearranged coordinates and remain in the vehicle."

One by one, the teams confirmed their directions. My team—Alpha—remained silent as I switched off the radio. "We wait until all teams report in secured locations. We must have control of the area," I said, my voice reaching every quiet corner of the speeding car. "Await my instructions. Be prepared to move."

* * *

This was where all Safeguard's training led. Our purpose became reality when a threat moved on our protected entity.

And I was in charge, only answering to the Director.

It felt like a jump, but after three years of work I also felt like I had earned the position. I had absorbed lessons from my co-workers, gone through advanced training and practiced until a commanding tone became engrained. It was hard, but felt right, to make these calls and lead these men and women. They turned to me in a way I had started to anticipate. They saw something in my leadership.

So I would be what they needed me to be. My broken-in pants were perfectly pressed. My shirt was none too snug, nor too loose. My breasts were compressed by a snug bra, small though I thought them, and my suit jacket and badge bumped my appearance from "office worker" to "agent". My shoes had a slight heel but were comfortable for a run and a fight. My hair was pulled back into a tight tail atop my head.

Safeguard made sure we were ready for any situation: I trained in these clothes. The sense memories bolstered my resolve.

* * *

The first SUV reached the checkpoint, slowed, released one of my team leaders. After a short period of conversation, the rest of us were waved through. We passed the SUV which remained: they would take care of this checkpoint, informing them of what their old orders meant, what their new orders were, and what would happen next.

Brody and Larek might have done a lot, but this was unofficially official, sanctioned by an actual government higher-up. We were given jurisdiction. We were the authorities now.

SUVs split as we approached the town. A through E headed into the center, and the rest split to deal with other agents stationed around Roswell.

I kept my eyes on our tech setup instead of watching my childhood home pass.

Once reaching our destination, we sat in silence and waited the streets to be cleared, waited for Bravo to infiltrate the hall.

Waited as they entered and surrounded our opposition. Sully derailed our foe expertly. The situation devolved into a standoff, but we had expected as much. That was why only one team went in: the second would tip the scales in our favor, pull the rug out from underneath the others.

I watched until acknowledgments came in from my teams all over town. Then I pressed the reply button, excluding my occupied Bravo team. "Good. Maintain positions. Await further orders. Team Charlie, be prepared to move." Acknowledgments. "Alpha Team, move out." They surged ahead of me, keeping their leader safe while performing their required duties.

My heels made no sound on the concrete sidewalk and clicked when I reached the five wide marble steps. I inhaled the dry scent of sand and stone, felt the cold of sunset filtering through wind-blown sky, heard the rumbles of car engines and the feet of my own agents.

Home. I'd never felt so attached yet distant.

The city hall doors opened to my agents' charge. They spilled down the corridor, entered the main meeting room through the front doors, and spread out inside. I paused in the doorway—theatric, perhaps. But more pointedly, asserting my dominance. I had no fear, exposed my presence, stood in plain sight. I was in charge here.

I took in the room from behind mirrored sunglasses. Yes, there was Rath closest to the king, Oeri behind his outstretched arm, her own reaching forward as if to slip around and shield him instead. Lomeh, defensive posture shielding Vilandra. Ava, the queen, gripped a letter opener as though it were a knife. And Zan, face an indecipherable mask.

I did not look closer at their faces.

But I felt their eyes.

They shifted from me, to my agents, to the agents who were there before us, and to their leader. He stood in the center of the room, gun aimed at the king.

* * *

Pierce, the alien-hunter.

The government had him on their payroll for a lot of reasons. He found secrets like a bloodhound. He made an excellent cup of coffee, and was a charismatic conversationalist. He was ruthless. He could be useful.

He had also been tagged by his own agency as having the potential to go rogue.

Our good fortune. They wanted no hand in our intervention.

* * *

Framed by the dying rays of sunset, I let my arms dangle loose in their sockets. Ready.

Pierce turned to look at me. His eyes were wild. The lines that never warmed his smile were sharper than ever, his forehead deeply creased, his shoulders bunched and tightened. He was worse than unhappy. He was not stable.

To our advantage, the aliens in the room were wary of their secret. They were reacting more like humans would in the face of assault by armed government agents. No hands extended to use their powers—but that was hardly enough to dissuade Pierce. I was surprised Rath hadn't moved already, with the king under direct threat. Zan must have made it an order: no exposure. No matter what.

My observations were made while my body remained motionless. The sunglasses made me feel less exposed when recognition shone from face to face. Yet no one so much as breathed my name. The Antarians were probably far too shocked to draw attention to knowing me.

My agents did not have their weapons out. Pierce's did not seem to know what to do, weapons drawn but lingering on the ground or a wall.

When Pierce turned, Zan fell out of his line of sight. It was arrogance, but the refugee king did not make a move. Instead, his composure crumpled at the corners and his eyes were on me. His gaze felt the heaviest, a weight and pressure tracing the lines of my limbs, drinking in the color of my skin and the shade of my clothes. I could feel it. My heart rejoiced and despaired when he reestablished his barriers.

In the time I squirmed internally under those alien eyes, Pierce drawled, "Stone."

The name I used, undercover for a Safeguard investigation. My response was a single nod. He smiled. The corners of his eyes stayed flat.

I looked to his underlings. "Agent Lee, you and all your subordinates will leave this location immediately and turn yourselves over to the agents waiting outside." He was clearly startled by my command. Pierce's aim wobbled. Lee opened his mouth, hesitated, and glanced between me and his commanding officer. I tapped my fingers on the shield at my hip. "Now, agent."

"You can't come into an active investigation and issue orders to my men," Pierce interrupted, turning his full attention to me. "Why are you here, Stone?"

His gun lowered. I breathed more easily. Zan eyed the back of Pierce's head, then me. Calculating.

I hoped fervently he saw my edging footsteps, approaching a wild animal liable to pounce. That he waited. That he stayed back.

"If you cooperate you might keep your job. If I and my supervisor determine that you were unaware of the circumstances, you may escape criminal charges—"

"Criminal?" Lee blurted.

"—but the same is not true for your former-agent supervisor—"

"Former," Pierce snarled. "I am a federal agent of the United States and you have absolutely no authority over me!" His shout bounded from ceiling to floor, rolling into brittle silence.

My fingers tightened on my hips. "I advise you to consider your options carefully."

Lee blinked. Pierce's other agents seemed dazed. Only McCarthy and Burns stared at me with flat eyes, and I knew they, at least, were fully aware of the situation.

Pierce stalked toward me. His gun-hand waved in the air erratically as he roared, "This is my operation! Who do you think you are—"

My chin tilted up so I could continue meeting his eyes. "I deal with messes like you."

"Me? I'm the only one here doing my fucking job!"

I eyed the gun. "Lower your weapon, sir." Sully practically vibrated on my left, but he wouldn't react proactively. Zan, on the other hand…

By leaving Roswell, I burned every bridge I'd ever constructed myself or let others build for me. But I now knew Zan better than I ever did while living in Roswell. And I could see, over Pierce's shoulder, that the king's expression had gone from detached to furious. Rath gripped his shoulder.

So when Pierce's eyes shone with an unfamiliar glint, I was less worried than I could have been. And he lowered it, all right—between my eyes.

* * *

Would you believe, this was not the first time I had stared down the barrel of a gun?

It was only notable because this was the first time anyone from my former life was witness to it.

* * *

Sully's gun clicked, inches away from Pierce's ear.

The click muffled my name, gasped from Oeri's lips: I barely heard her voice, only a fragment which sounded more like a squeak of fear.

Zan struggled against the grip Rath and Vilandra had on him, both arms pinned. Pierce loomed. With the sunglasses hiding my eyes, my fear didn't register.

The air turned thick as gel.

I repeated my command. "Agent Lee, take your men off the premises." Lee looked at Pierce's profile. His fingers twitched. The agents hesitated.

Then they moved. My team escorted them to the doors.

Pierce's eyes rolled in their sockets, flying around the room to take in the shift of his forces from his side to mine. The gun aimed at my head shook. I felt flecks of spit on my cheek as he snarled, "You're here for answers, aren't you? I'm the only one who can give them to you! Who can tell you what no one wants you to know!"

* * *

Hearing that in this place shuffled forth memories of longing, memories of wishing that whatever conspiracy kept me in the dark could be broken, memories of lies and secrecy and pain.

His offer when I was home was a cruel gut punch.

He truly was that good at reading people.

* * *

Contrary to what _he_ hoped, I could see his reaction had exactly the effect for which _I_ hoped. The agents clearly not in the know were rattled by his seeming imbalance. I saw only McCarthy and Burns lingering at the back. I peeked around the outside edge of my glasses. Vasquez did not look at me, but her head bobbed slowly. She'd take care of it.

Rage emanated from the Antarians, keeping the room in a state of imbalance as the agents cleared out. It was like a live entity, something nearly tangible. I refused to look back at Zan.

The only thing keeping them in check was uncertainty about my role here. And that anger was soaked in fear, worry that I would take him up on his offer.

But Pierce was playing his only card. Isolated, hand clenched around his weapon, he backed away two steps. His arm shook with small tremors, though he didn't lower his weapon—incorrectly thinking I was bargaining chip or savior. Sully hadn't moved, either.

Pierce knew that there was no way out. Lower his weapon, we'd take him in. Shoot me, Sully would retaliate.

The only wild cards here were the Antarians. I felt the weight of eyes on me. So many eyes.

Taking a deep breath, I let the last vestiges of fear slip away.

* * *

This man threatened my people. I did not want this man to leave the desert alive.

* * *

I felt the ruthless serenity of knowing. My actions would never make it into a government report. I was, in fact, cleared no matter what outcome Pierce pushed. (It was the emotion that kept me going in the rough parts of training, when I thought about why secrets were so necessary to everyone I loved, when I reviewed security footage. This was the callousness I doubt anyone ever knew I could possess.)

Pierce's gun hand wavered when he saw that his control over me was as tenuous as his ability to interrogate alien prisoners.

"Where are they, Pierce?" I asked.

He frowned. His jaw clenched. His finger twitched on the trigger. Sully inhaled, preparing himself to fire steady and sure.

Slowly, I reached up with one hand and slipped the sunglasses off my face. Let him my eyes not tearful or pleading, nor merciless and cold. Eyes empty of fear. I stared down the barrel of the gun and let flood my heart memories of home when I was happy—dancing with Maria, listening to music on a car radio, walking down the hallways at school with Alex's fingers poking my shoulder. (A brief, stolen, mistake of a moment astride Max in the Jeep.)

That was all he saw looking at me.

And in return, I saw the cracks of insanity peel back. He looked at my expression and remembered.

His arm started to lower—halting, jerky movements.

I don't know whether it was a signal or true emotion.

* * *

The scene in my head is more expansive than that moment felt.

A scuffle broke out behind me. Vasquez would have subdued a returning loyalist with barely a sound, so I did not hesitate to turn. Away from Pierce.

My gun out of its holster and in my hands, a slip-second movement that was trained into my hands and arms. Aim, pull, see McCarthy stagger and collapse, clutching his gut, Vasquez lunging from her knees to shove McCarthy's weapon out of the way.

I turned back, recalling a gun aimed at my head. My own lifted in weak defense. Thinking my moments would be the last, if Sully was the slower draw.

* * *

I killed before.

Previous mission. Extenuating circumstances. It was unpleasant and messy and far too close, right in my face. But I did it and I would do it again.

Maybe that's one of the big reasons I was afraid to go home after I learned all the reasons for secrecy.

All Zan ever wanted was peace.

And I was a killer now.

* * *

Instead of an incomplete journey, I saw the space Pierce's body used to be. Then I looked down, expecting to see Sully.

Zan's knee pressed into Pierce's neck with suffocating pressure, each hand pulled back tightly, white-knuckled grip on wrists, and eyes staring intently into mine.

Our eyes met for the first time. And I saw the black alien nothingness of iris-concealing-pupil.


	2. I can't control you

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any part of this series. Nor am I the intellect behind Bennie's fic _Conspiracy_.

**Summary**: Liz always knew a return to Roswell was in the cards. Five years after she left, Fate plucked that one from the deck. AU inspired by 'Conspiracy' (details inside).

**Author's Note**: Title for this chapter is from the song "Control" by Puddle of Mudd.

* * *

…

_I can't control you__ (Y__ou can't control me) _

…

My team made no outward reaction. The rest of our Antarian audience drew back—a movement en masse, as if afraid I would lift my loosely-held weapon and wildly shoot into them. The ache which came from hurting another man intensified.

I was doing my job and it wasn't a pleasant peaceful one. It was gritty and tough and nasty.

Rath knelt beside Zan, hands a manacle on the agent's wrists. Zan rose from his crouch. Eyelids closed once and reopened to normal, to the eyes I was used to seeing in people's skulls. The change betrayed no further emotion.

Sully came forward to take custody of Pierce in the time it took for me to holster my weapon. Pierce made no move to resist, face betraying his utter lack of care for the well-being of his wounded subordinate. He truly was mad. Something else in my chest twisted.

Correct about aliens or not, he had gone far off the deep end if he thought the men who followed him deserved none of his care. My move was calculated—medics were with us, it was only a gut-shot, painful but treatable if they reached him in time—but it failed to evoke any conscionable reaction from him.

Sully pulled Pierce upright. His head tilted to the side, and I waited to hear what he thought was a vital parting shot. "Should have guessed," he snarled, the light of intelligence glimmering behind the madness. "Which one are you fucking, Stone?"

No fear. He was too far gone to fear what I could do to him.

I pretended that Zan's eyes stayed human. That Ava did not physically prevent Oeri's hand from rising.

My only response was a correction. "The name's Parker."

Then I turned my back to him and Sully and the other traitorous agents and my team. Turned my back to the Antarians clinging to each other on the far side of the hall. I headed to the table layered with papers that I could see at a glance were military issue. Any Antarian meeting documents must have been sealed as evidence.

Pierce's rustle of stubborn non-resistance echoed in the room. Pierce's breath grew sharp, a low growl of understanding and anger. He knew, then, who I was and why I was invested in Roswell.

I said, "You have your orders, Agent."

* * *

Before my SUV reached Roswell, I said, "Agent Sully. There's a rock quarry to the east. When we have Pierce, deal with him."

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

I expected more from Pierce than slurs against my parentage (and more about my sexual activities).

I circled the table and refrained from touching anything until I got a good look at all of it. Yes, it was federal. All of it was likely illegal (the whole operation was illegal). I gingerly lifted a single sheet, eyeing the lines for a clue.

Analysts and grunt workers, patrols and search parties… I pulled out my radio. "Team leaders Bravo through Echo, proceed on schedule. Teams Foxtrot and Golf, be prepared to escort Speck Oon back to base. Unbalanced Cargo is in custody en-route to the military, under heavy guard. All others, sit tight." After I received acknowledgments, I lowered the radio.

I ignored the shiver I got at the eyes. Always with the eyes…

Team Bravo filtered into the room, quietly encircling the perimeter. The Antarian council members huddled away from them, wary. I distracted myself by calling for the leader. "Klein." He jumped to attention, snapping a smart salute and only letting it fall when I added, "Get started on these."

"Yes, ma'am!" Several agents converged on the table, starting the clean-up. Backing away from the table, I lifted the paper I looked at earlier. Let the lines of text float in front of my eyes without gaining traction.

Our unit had almost come too late to prevent Pierce from doing some serious damage to the Antarian king. Their sense of peace was irrevocably shattered. And our mission was far from over.

The other members of Team Bravo were making the Antarians uncomfortable. But I had to present myself as the controlling agent in the room. I had to make my authority clear so they would take me seriously, even if I was a former young thing under their supervision. Now I had a reach they feverishly magnified beyond any reasonable proportion, and I had to use that against them.

It felt dirty. Manipulative. Pierce.

This was the harsh reality of my job and their existence—and all the lies that drove me away in the first place. Those wounds weren't healed, I could admit that. There was even a secret thrill in my gut at being so in control of the flow of knowledge in that room.

Just over the edge of the paper, I let my eyes linger on one form, avoiding his face. That was easy enough, as he was in consultation with the curly-haired queen bee of my high school years. I kept my gaze away from the familiar face of my best friend and her boyfriend, from one of my ex-boyfriends and his best friend. I surreptitiously watched the man who once told me that he loved me (before I turned him down and left town).

Because Zan, you see, was Max.

* * *

Essence transference to a suitable genetically modified body which was well adapted to specific planetary elements.

To put Larek's explanation more simply: Antarian bodies could not handle Earth's atmosphere. So they created new ones.

The aliens of Roswell were all transferred, in a process of many years, into new hybrid bodies. Many of their people were still in stasis, slowly being transferred and awoken, and this allowed Roswell's population to grow at a projected, suitable rate.

So Rath and Oeri: Michael and Maria, actual old married couple (from another life). Vilandra the princess, Isabel the sister. Lameh the royal guard, Kyle my ex-boyfriend. And Ava the queen was Tess the cheerleader in this lifetime.

It's still a little hard to take in on top of the alien revelation. I've found this kind of knowledge is more manageable in smaller doses.

* * *

The conference table was cleared within five minutes. Team Bravo left while Team Alpha took up the perimeter. The Antarians mingled and stared at me and murmured to themselves. I knew I was running out of time. Still, I tried. My heels clicked on the tile floors as Vasquez approached with a report folder, and I let our paths intersect on my way toward Max.

She gave me a considering look, knowing my history, and I simply raised an eyebrow. "Ma'am," she said, handing over the folder.

"Thank you," I replied, taking it and flipping briefly through. Everything impeccable. "Agent Sully?"

"On track. He just radioed in his route."

I nodded and turned to go back to the conference table. Stalling, placing the folder down before calling over the Antarians.

Behind me, the air moved. Voices quieted to the faintest murmur. I felt tingles shoot through my skin as a wide-palmed hand fell to my arm and turned.

Just as I expected. The eyes were easy to read.

Max's swirled, dark flecks betraying sorrow and pain, the size of the whites telling of his shock at what I had done. Lines at the corner of his mouth deepened with the flex of muscle. Just beyond him were too many familiar faces, not nearly as close but enough to make me feel trapped.

I didn't wait for him to speak. "That was a stupid, reckless move."

His eyebrows lowered, shock flashing to anger. "He was going to kill you," Max snarled.

I steeled myself. Pulling my arm out of his grasp with a sharp yank, I turned away to re-solidify my competence. Control. "You interfered with a federal investigation and the apprehension of an armed and dangerous suspect." I walked to the head of the conference table. "I trained specifically for situations like this. You have not."

When I turned, I saw what I had felt. He followed me halfway, lingered yards away from the table. The faces of my peers remained peripheral. Max assessed me, crossed his arms, and excused himself with, "He threatened me."

"I'm the agent. It's my job to take care of people like him and protect civilians. I have the authority here." With a flick of my wrist, all agents except Vasquez moved for the door.

He eyed the movement, turned his head to track the progress of the agents. "I understand."

"I doubt that." I suppressed a wince at the sharpness. Trying for more diplomacy, I gestured to the table with my free hand. "We're going to have a conversation. This is highly sensitive information. Any others remain at your discretion."

The tension felt like a pressure headache. I looked away from them and paced to the far side of the table. Flipped open the folder in my hands casually.

From the corner of my eye, Max's arms lowered stiffly, a forced casual gesture that would have tipped me off if I didn't know already. He valiantly tried to gloss through. "I can give you a statement, but I'm not sure—"

Time to nip that right in the bud. "Take a seat, Zan."

The air was sucked right out of the room.

I lifted my head, enforcing it with my eyes. Trying to push away the emotions I felt at speaking my hard-found knowledge aloud.

Max seemed to be a statue. Maria was the one to speak, eyes wide and glistening. "Liz?" Wavered like a child.

I focused on Max. Something came to his eyes, some emotion I couldn't place. I brushed it aside without taking it in. "Sit down, or get locked up somewhere. Your choice." The faint stuttering flicker turned into slapped-face dampness, a steel mask over clear pain. Michael stepped in front of Max before my eyes rolled in realization. "That's not a threat, Rath."

"Sure sounds like one," he said, taking one more step to place himself full in front of his king. His arms were bunched and ready, and the angle of his arm was odd (like he was ready to raise his hand).

I crossed my arms and stared him down. "It's a warning. You think he—" I jerked a thumb to the doorway Pierce had passed through. "—was working alone? We don't have much time, but there's enough that I can share our information with you."

Maybe it was my words. Maybe it was the memory of who I used to be. Whatever made Michael believe, lingered only for a moment before stepping aside.

Max and I looked at each other from across the table. Never had the divide seemed bigger.

* * *

That was when I knew why.

"You don't trust me."

* * *

As though it was a test of some sort, Max flushed slightly. "That's not—"

I shrugged, the folder grasped in one hand jabbing into my ribs. "I don't trust you." He winced. I tried not to let it bother me. "But I can promise that if you sit down, I will not lie to you."

And that was the truth.

I had to work with him on this, had to get him to listen and think about the information I was going to share. And in the end, I saw the decision light his eyes.

He turned to Michael and spoke in a lowered voice I could not hear. The Commander nodded and spoke only a few short words to the others. Then, slowly, the Antarians drifted out of the room. I refused to look at Isabel and Kyle, whose hand tugging gently on Maria's arm. Max and Tess exchanged looks before the queen joined the others. Eventually, the doors closed beyond one last fretful gaze from my former best friend. Michael reassumed his position behind Max.

Max didn't turn back to me the entire time. Then, finally, he spun on one heel and strode to the table. There was sharpness to his movements I had never seen before, calculated awareness that took me off-guard when I saw older eyes in that youthful face. There was a flicker of darkness, like that which had covered his pupils earlier, and the same shadow fluttered in Michael.

Peaceful Zan was still in Max, still a king, even as a refugee in an alien land. And Rath had always been a warrior.

Despite knowing how dangerous they could be, I felt no fear. Maybe because of my memories, or since I knew their reputations, or due to vibe they emitted. Somehow I knew they wouldn't hurt me.

Max and I pulled out our chairs at the same time. Our eyes met over the table as he sat. I didn't bother to instruct Michael not to loom behind his king's chair: he had every right and reason to be wary.

I remained standing and tossed the folder onto the table. It slid across the surface, pale cream with a rectangular box printed on the front. Inside the box was stamped the Homeland Security logo, and a second symbol underneath. That of my department: five dots arranged in a column, looping line weaving between them, sealed inside a triangle.

He glanced between it and me, his hand stretching out as I remained motionless and wordless. One finger flipped open the cover casually, attempting to conceal his concern. Surprise that flickered as he saw the first page. "The agent," he said. Michael leaned over Max's shoulder, just enough to see the page. "You called him Pierce." Max tapped the edge of the paper, where biographical information was listed in neat twelve-point font.

I sank into the opposite chair. "Agent Pierce. Marine, honorable discharge. He never actually qualified to be an agent, never went through training. He has been under contract with Homeland Security for fifteen years. Officially, he's a special operative with advanced skill sets. Unofficially, he works the crazy cases, ones the government at large doesn't know about and doesn't want to be made public or connected to. Things classified as supernatural and extraterrestrial." At this, both men returned their analytic gazes on me. I maintained my composure as well as I could. "He's their pet alien-hunter."

Michael demanded, "Does Homeland Security know about us?" His shoulders rolled back.

"There are internal divisions. Only a select few even know Pierce works for them, let alone what he does." I shrugged one shoulder. "Extra-terrestrial life on Earth is strictly need to know."

"And you need to know?" Michael crossed his arms.

"I work with a division that is aware of Roswell. Pierce was not part of that division. There are people that the Director does not believe should be made aware." I knew what question was coming and headed it off. "The Director can discuss this with you at a later time. We need to focus on here and now." Michael frowned, but let it go. For now.

Max lifted his head. "If Pierce was not part of this division, how did he find out about us?"

I swallowed. "I can tell you what we have gathered so far. Six months ago, Pierce went on a leave of absence. In code that means he stopped coming into the office for his morning cup of coffee. Usually when that happens, the agent is working on something that the rest of the office can't, or shouldn't, know about."

"Us."

My fingers tapped against the table. "Maybe. Pierce hasn't been acting rationally, though. He was supposed to return to the office at the start of the month, but applied for extended time. Then last week, he returned to HQ. The director he usually went to with these cases was available, and yet he chose to approach a different superior."

"So he told someone who wasn't on the need-to-know and, probably the reason they weren't in the know," Michael snorted, "they freaked out?"

If only it were that simple. "He told them there was a terrorist cell in Roswell stockpiling ammunition and intending to gather nuclear weapons."

Max shuddered. "That's…insane."

Face pale, eyes wide, Michael insisted, "He's lying."

Their reactions gave me comfort. A tangible proof of a personal, prior certainty.

"He was told to get a psychological evaluation before returning to work." I crossed my legs and leaned into the side of my chair. "Pierce is smart and driven. He's always had a clear limit. And he's a master manipulator. He knows damn well who he could approach in HQ for permission to take an offensive in an extraterrestrial case. At the moment, we don't know why he made up a story or what he hoped to accomplish by it." I paused to breathe around uncomfortable memories.

Max had noticed, though. "You knew him."

Something in his tone made me look at his face, and I caught a brief glimpse of a depth of emotion quickly shuttered.

For a moment, I had seen Max. And I remembered the last time I was in his car.

My fingers dug into my thigh. "I went undercover in his office for a time." It felt like a lie. I clarified, "We worked together. I know what he's capable of." Nothing more than honest truth.

I couldn't quite meet his eyes and, thankfully, Michael had questions. "How long did it take for him to change the mind of the director he spoke with? Or did he just shift gears and approach one he knew would let him come?"

"Three days ago, he went AWOL." My arms crossed against the chill of memory. "Took a select number of agents with him. He didn't cover correspondence quite as well as he may have thought, so we know that at least three-quarters of them were lied to and thought they were in search of weapons and on an authorized mission. They were all from Homeland Security."

Max released a long breath through his nose. "And the remaining quarter?"

"They're in on whatever he's planning. They've all been personally linked to Pierce in the course of some of his other work." I rested my elbows on the table, gripping opposite forearms tightly. "Whatever he wants from Roswell he knew he wouldn't get permission to do."

At this point, with most of the story out, I finally paid attention to the little gestures between Max and Michael. The Commander, now standing beside his king, made a few tiny hand gestures to which Max's head inclined in response.

The alien king looked at me. I saw only the unknown in his expression. My spine straightened. "What is it?"

Michael had turned into stone, staring down over the table. Max's voice was slow, soft. "You clearly know who we are. And this organization you're with also knows. An agent has put his entire career on the line to come here and threaten my people. You've been trained to kill." I refused to allow myself the luxury of wincing. "We are reasonable suspects. So why are we having a conversation at a conference table?"

* * *

My warning truly hadn't been taken as such.

It was sad to hear that the people who raised me thought I could turn and destroy what little peace they had left. But I could have been such a danger if not for Larek and Brody. If Pierce had found me, seeking his answers…

The people who built their refuge here needed something more than a lone human's heartfelt promise of loyalty. What could I say that rang with truth?

Not words of my own.

* * *

I repeated the words Larek used when telling me the truth about Roswell. "Zan the Great is a peaceful man. Treat him well and he'll do you no harm."

Max's inhale came sharp. "Who told you that?"

"The Director." I shook my head. "Part of him." Sucking air between my teeth, I added, "It's complicated. Zan—"

"Max." As startling as my revelation had to have been, his correction startled me more. He leaned forward, pleadingly, and I sank back into my chair as his eyes glowed with something much more familiar than the kingly disguise. "Please. My name is Max."

Instead of responding to his request, I avoided the name altogether. "I knew Pierce. The man who was here today, that's a man I've never seen before. But I've caught glimpses of him." I pushed aside memories that rose at the thought. "He was never brought into our unit despite the work he's done."

"Your Director didn't trust him," Michael said.

His quiet re-involvement in the conversation allowed me to look away from Max's slowly-closing off expression. "No one did. Homeland Security did not want him to be anything more than a consultant. My director's superiors take the attitude that a live wire which serves a useful purpose can be kept. Until it is no longer useful."

Michael understood immediately what I was so ashamed to say aloud. "Let me guess. Coming here proved it." His jaw twitched.

My eyes lowered. I had never disliked it more than in that moment. "I could tell you about bureaucracy, and politics. But that's a weak excuse."

"Yeah."

"Michael."

Michael relented as much as he was able. "It's true." One shoulder lifted and lowered. "But you've done your best, I'll admit that. So what did happen?"

"Pierce found it out about Roswell on his own," I said. Pushing my chair back from the table, I slipped my hands behind my back as my feet slipped into pacing. "That's what I think happened. The question I have is what tipped him off."

Max sat up straighter in his seat. "What do you mean?"

"Roswell's been the epicenter of exactly nothing for years. No activity should have made his radar. We keep everything under our control so things like this don't happen. Yet somehow, Pierce did exactly what our Director always tried to prevent."

Fear flickered in his eyes. "We haven't done anything to draw attention to ourselves. All the years we've been here, we have gone out of our way to keep a low profile. No one wants us to stay secret more than my people, and they would never risk discovery."

I could only nod. Of course they hadn't done anything to deserve this treatment. We were well aware of Roswell's activities. Even if they had a hidden serial killer in the basement, they wouldn't deserve Pierce's plans.

But those very plans were why I had to push. "He was in Roswell for four hours before we arrived. You were in this room with him for at least one. Did he tell you anything?"

He seemed startled by the question and shrugged, a familiar discomfort. "Not really. Nothing about why he was here."

"One hour, Zan. What did he say?"

His eyes narrowed. "I already told you. Nothing."

"Think harder." I knew I was pushing it, knew it sounded like an accusation—knew that I needed to do my job.

"I'm telling you the truth!" My hands rested on the back of the chair when he exploded: a sharp hand, slicing through the air, a slight rise out of his seat—but no pressure, no wave of extraterrestrial force. The king seated before me glared, but even as his eyes blazed he analyzed my words, my expression. "What is this about?" he asked, frown deepening. "There's something else. Something more."

I gestured to the file before him. He looked at it without prompting, flipping a page and taking in—at a single glance—the data. Over his shoulder, Michael's hunched shoulders wriggled under his shirt in apprehension. "Weapons. Pierce's cover story."

Like a Band-Aid. "That isn't a report Pierce filed. It's from a military base not far from here." Michael straightened as if electrified. "Two trucks loaded with those materials went missing overnight. Two of Pierce's agents in the know would have had the means and opportunity to pull it off." "

"This much is missing." It wasn't a question: Max stared me down, a cold fury building in his eyes. "That could destroy the entire downtown area." I couldn't tell if he was angry at me, but I wouldn't have blamed him.

Hastening to reassure, I was also careful when I pushed again. "My teams are already searching. But is there anything—anything—that he said, or did, that stood out to you?"

Michael shook his head. "Nothing. Threats, xenophobic crap, that's all he was saying! This stuff is out there?" he added, jabbing one finger angrily into the paper.

The answer to that question was obvious. "We'll do our best. Some of the best agents I know of are on my teams."

"Are my people in danger, Agent?" Of course the king would think of his people, and the man would care about those he knew and loved. "How seriously do we need to treat this threat? Is it time to start an evacuation, or are you truly certain that you will succeed in time to prevent harm coming to any of us?"

* * *

It's not easy to tell an alien what you think an alien hunter wants. It was a testament to their belief in human goodness that an explanation was required.

And that said a lot about humans, too.

* * *

I looked at the table again, somehow unable to meet the king's eyes as I told him, "I don't have proof. Just a gut feeling."

"Intuition is acceptable," said Max. "Go on."

"I think he meant to plant the evidence, so that the agents he lied to would believe him. I think that his end goal was for every agent under his command to believe him above any information they would eventually hear to the contrary. The Pierce I knew truly believed that his work was in defense of human beings and his country. He would do whatever he thought was necessary, ends justify the means, that kind of thing. And recently, in this country, what treatment do terrorists receive?"

They went where I led. I finally looked up to see Max's face break, as if his heart was bruised a little more, as if something had been proven. I realized then that he had thought of it first, had assumed that was Pierce's end game, but was willing to build the evidence before proclaiming his suspicions. He was saddened, not by reality, but by his own failed optimism.

"He could experiment. All he wanted, and no one would stop him. The other agents would think the torture was to get information."

There was nothing I could say to that. It was a possibility that had me in nightmares when I thought of my parents, Maria, Alex, in cells or being tested. Being hurt by people who thought that these loving, kind souls wanted to hurt anyone. Without bothering to think of their history and why they were even on this land in the first place.

I couldn't imagine what it must have been like for all of them. While I grew up thinking that the worst thing was to be insulted, they dreaded scalpels and probes.

Even my theory wasn't enough. "Regardless, Pierce is being too unpredictable. I can't be sure I know his mind anymore. So I can't take a risk based on gut feeling. We assume that there's a clear and present danger. That said, with him in custody, evacuation shouldn't be necessary."

Max nodded and pushed his chair back as Michael said, "We have to find the bombs."

I eyed Max as he rose to his feet. I had made no move to dismiss them from this meeting. "I already have teams canvassing the town."

"Thank you, but we can handle it." Even knowing he was a ruler in a former life hadn't prepared me for such an easy dismissal. He looked at me serenely, certain I would obey. "This is our town. We appreciate your assistance, and belief that we mean no harm. But this is our territory and we will take care of any incursion." The lines around his lips softened. "Despite the situation it's nice to see you back, Liz."

His attempt to placate me placed a spark to the kindling in my veins. Suddenly, the anger I always struggled with surged forward. My shoulders pushed back, my chin tilting at an upwards angle, I looked across the table at a suddenly-wary alien king. "Agent. Special Agent, actually. And no, you are not taking charge of my investigation."

My own move rattled him as much as his had startled me. "This is our territory."

"Actually, this is the territory of the United States government. You are, for all intents and purposes, a refugee camp subject to your host country's laws and authority. You may have been a king, Zan," I reminded him, "but here, you are a civilian in the eyes of the law. Unless you declared Roswell an Antarian territory and we just didn't get the memo."

His lips pressed together tightly.

Great job, Liz. Piss off the alien king. Time to leave.

The acid on my tongue would only grow worse. I strode toward the end of the table, reaching behind me to flick the small radio back on. A low hum of communication started up, just below the range of coherency. I needed to shake this off, get back into work, be prepared for field updates and the commotion of HQ—wherever it was set up. Probably waiting to take over city hall (our one sure safe spot: Pierce wouldn't have rigged the building in which he was conducting his performance).

Behind me, I heard Michael mutter, "Interview over, huh?"

"Michael." Max's admonishment did nothing to settle my crackling nerves. "Liz—"

My name on his lips was only a reminder. One I didn't want to deal with, not now. I did not look back at either of them as I rounded the table and headed toward the door. "We're done here, sir. You're free to go." On the last word, I made my own exit.

My heels made sharp clicks against the tile floor. How dare he treat me like a child! How dare he undermine my authority! I resisted smashing my fist against the wall as I strode down the hallway.

A faint squeak of rubber soles on the tile echoed behind me, mingling with the rapid clip of my own shoes. For a moment, I thought about increasing my pace. But to escape this, I'd have to start running.

And I didn't want to run.

* * *

It had hit me like a truck when I stepped foot on home soil for the first time in years: I wanted to stay again. Wanted to feel the summer wind and the winter sun. Wanted the arms of my parents and the laughter of my best friends. Wanted to taste sand in my mouth, grit between my teeth. Wanted to feel a lean body against mine again.

The realization was scary. It was also impossible while this mission was ongoing.

* * *

I stopped when his firm hand closed around my shoulder, again.

His eyes were so dark. So sad. And so determined. I was not the only one who wanted something.

"This conversation is not over," he said, leaning towards me, looming over me, pressing his height advantage. "I know we both have responsibilities. And I know your reasons for being here are not what I'd perhaps prefer." My emotions ricocheted. "But you are here and we do need to talk about the fact that you came back." There was passion under those depths, and hurt. "We need to talk about why you left."

"Zan—"

A weak response. His other hand came up, brushing my arm, fingers curling around the bicep. "Stop calling me that name," he pleaded. "It's from another life. Liz—"

My name on his lips brought cruel reality crashing down. I couldn't let us get swept up in a conversation like this right now. My hands settled on his forearms.

"Neither of us has the luxury of being anything but agent or king right now!" I broke his grip on me. "We have a town full of civilians who might be in danger. We have several units of federal agents who need a commander. We have several other units of specialized forces and no way of knowing for sure who may be an ally and who is definitely an enemy. I have a director coming down here within thirty-six hours if I don't wrap this case up in the next twelve, ridiculous reports to file, a fucking budget to—"

I stopped. No, that was too much to say. No, I hadn't wanted him to know all that. No, I shouldn't have let my composure fall. I stepped back from him, running a hand over my hair as if to soothe the stress in my head.

Max always was the responsible one, even when I didn't know how much weight was on his shoulders. He moved backwards as well, hands slipping into his pockets. A habit of discomfort. A move that signaled his dislike of the necessary.

I stared and another piece slipped in place.

* * *

"This conversation is over." Inhale. "For now."

Because I had a lot I needed to talk about, too.

And I was finally ready to do it.

* * *

As if to emphasize fact, my radio emitted a chirp which signaled high priority. Instantly, I pulled it and turned up the volume. "Report."

"We have a situation, ma'am."

I looked up. Watched as the emotions were raveled neatly back up into a compact knot, as the king superseded the man, and pressed the button to reply. "Continue."

"Unstable Cargo has escaped custody."

Fuck. "Location?"

"Temporary base is set up in Crashdown Café."

Fuck. "On my way."

Max stared back at me. He would not try again—not until this crisis was over. He called over his shoulder for Michael to join us, eyes never leaving mine. I replied only with a nod.

The three of us set off at a fast clip toward my parent's restaurant.

* * *

Entering the Crashdown for the first time in five years, I saw my mom behind the counter and my dad serving mugs of coffee alongside several of those sent away from the meeting hall. They hesitated when they saw me, uncertainty lining their bodies as they each turned toward me, then back to the agents. My mom brushed her hair out of one eye, my dad's hands shook on the mugs. Maria and Kyle moved closer to each other. Tess and Isabel stood apart with hands on their hips. The Café was closed for business to tourists or locals, so it was us and my underlings.

Everyone I used to know was in the room with me, and for the life of me I couldn't think of a single word to say to them.

My agents worked, ignorant of or ignoring the tension crackling down the walls.

Slipping around myself and Max, Michael walked straight back to the kitchen. He detoured only to exchange a kiss with his wife. And after a moment of inaction, Max approached Tess. The queen watched one of my agents with interest. Kyle sidled close to Isabel, resting a hand on her forearm.

Much as I wished to address Maria's twitching arms or my father's reddened eyes, I only had time and heart for my job.

I had to deal with a madman's escape.

* * *

"Zimmer, I want that report by the end of the hour!" I snapped across the table. Turning, my eyes narrowed on the next nearest agent. "Where is my pickup, Lane?"

"Almost on-site," she replied, not glancing up once from her computer. My agents were professional, and we all understood stress leading to high volume commands. It was nothing against them. I'd still apologize later. After the fact, I felt bad for letting my temper get the better of me. But for now—

"I gave you that order five minutes ago! Why are they not there yet?"

She tapped a few keys. "Medics needed to grab alien-friendly materials." I ignored the stifled gasp from the vicinity of the peanut gallery.

"_Excuse_ me?" Without waiting for a reply, I turned to Vasquez. "You have my damn numbers and haven't reported them?"

Her expression said I wasn't going to like it. "Two civilians, three agents."

A low hum of pain battered at the edges of my conscience. Pierce's escape could have cost a lot more, but it was not at all acceptable for civilians to be in harm's way. Someone would be answering to the Director for this, and I'd be right up on the block with them.

"The damn medics better be reporting there now, Lane!" I shouted.

"Confirmed, ma'am." Finally.

"Ma'am," Vasquez added, with a hesitance completely unusual for her. "Agent Sully has requested a coroner." The words completely derailed my momentary surge of relief.

"For who?" Max's commanding voice cut through the bustle.

For a brief moment, my agents slowed in their work. They weren't used to anyone but me issuing orders and questions. I almost snapped at them, but Vasquez answered first.

"One civilian, two agents."

I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Bad enough to lose agents. But civilians?

"Someone tell me why the fuck that convoy was anywhere near civilians." None of my agents replied. "_Now!_" My shout careened into the ceiling. My heart pounded against my ribs.

"It was the shortest route, ma'am." Klein. I whirled on him. "Agent Sully thought a faster trip was imperative."

Sully. Of course. He knew how dangerous Pierce was, had banked on making it out faster than an escape attempt—and might have paid for it. My fingers rubbed my forehead.

I pushed back the red haze (anger) and pushed the blue haze (sadness) and tried desperately to get my head in this moment (because I had no time to feel emotion).

* * *

My teams were counting on me.

The Director was counting on me.

Zan and his people were counting on me.

I had to stay in control, stay focused, stay present.

I kept telling myself that.

* * *

I opened my eyes, only just realizing they had slipped closed. Faces loomed out of the brightly lit restaurant at me. My agents peeked up from their screens at intervals, working while awaiting their next orders. Maria and Isabel bused drinks and sandwiches to agents. Michael peered out from the kitchen. Kyle stood with his arms crossed beside my parents. Tess and Max, side by side, watched me quietly. Both their eyes had gone alien-dark, likely the moment they heard that two of their people had been injured in Pierce's escape. If not, then when a death had been reported.

I focused on the table scattered with papers taken from city hall and Pierce. Hands on my hips, I inhaled the familiar, slightly greasy air of my parent's restaurant.

A thousand and one meals had passed in the time since I left, and it all came rushing back as if it were yesterday.

I looked at Vasquez. "Draft the Director's report." To Klein. "Call the base. Let them know the prisoner's escaped and we have already started a manhunt." As I spoke, my agents erupted into a flurry of activity. I raised my voice and walked through the center of the commotion to reach all corners. "No, we do not need assistance; yes, we have already notified all branches required; and yes, they still need to prepare for a prisoner." Zimmer. "Send a report to the police station in Roswell and flag it as a federal investigation." Lane. "Call it in to the Bureau and flag it as our jurisdiction, no help necessary." Niao. "Call in to HQ. Request a Kill Order."

My agents didn't react, but under the chaos I heard a pan bang against a stovetop, a woman's voice raised in shock, murmurs.

I looked at Herman. "Radio my sniper unit. Get them on the rooftops. I want him dead."

I waded my way out of my buzzing, busy people. Phones going and voices speaking and the chaos of knowing what other jobs they had to do, things I left unsaid to protocol. I strode towards the table spread with files and papers for the head agent. Me.

An arm blocked my way. I looked up, recognizing this pattern. Max's alien-dark eyes were unreadable to me, but the downturned corners of his mouth told me of his conflicted disapproval. Tess's expression was far less conflicted—in fact, she seemed almost approving.

At least one of the rulers would back me up. "Do you have something to add, Zan?"

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "I'm no stranger to ordering deaths," he confessed. A tidbit he probably wasn't aware I knew. "But it's always been my last resort, and I don't know if it's the right thing to do here."

"You're not my supervisor. I don't need your permission," I said, slipping around him and resuming my course to the table.

"There has to be another way," he insisted, following behind me. "We shouldn't have to kill him to protect ourselves. Especially when we have done nothing to need extreme measures." The Antarians clustered near. I couldn't bring myself to even glance at our silent audience.

"First, it's not you, it's us. And second, I'm not sure what else you want us to do with him," I replied, slipping my suit jacket off my shoulders.

"You were taking him to the military base before," he said. "You still requested them to be prepared for a prisoner. Why a kill order when that plan is still in place?"

I ran my tongue over the outside of my teeth. "He was going to meet a tragic accident before reaching military custody. It's just different paperwork now." Silence. I looked up. His expression would have hurt, if I'd been letting emotions in at the moment. "Zan, he knows about you. About Roswell. He'd talk and he can't be allowed to do that."

"So you were just going to come here and kill him? No asking questions, no figuring out _why_ he decided we were a threat?" His questions were spot-on and exactly what I had already asked. "Isn't the 'why' important to your organization? Doesn't he deserve a trial, if you're going to be executioner?"

But it's not like he would know that I had the same questions. That his last word stabbed me and I stowed the pain for later. "I follow orders—"

"Is that how you avoid taking the blame?"

My jaw tightened. "And my orders," I continued, "are to deal with the threat by any means necessary. I consider him far too great a threat to be allowed to talk to anyone about anything he knows. So yes," I stepped forward, my chin tilting upwards to keep locked on his. "I requested a government pardon. And if I have to I will kill him myself."

Max crossed his arms. "I respect that you're doing your job. I'm grateful for your efforts to keep my people safe. But I'm worried that you're acting emotionally—" How dare he. "—and forgetting about Pierce's supporting agents. Those he brought with him are just as intent on seeing his goal through to the end, and they are not going to go away. You may want Pierce to be killed, but you are not going to commit a mass murder."

I swallowed. He had a point. But I was hardly acting emotionally, a charge that tugged at my careful emotional control with fiery tendrils. "All the agents are going to be assessed by our department. If they're clueless, they'll get a cover-up story. If Pierce told them the alien version, the Director will figure out how to handle it. We have that under control."

His eyes narrowed a fraction. "And how is this Director going to handle it?"

"He has his ways." I crossed my arms. "Zan, you're for peace. I don't enjoy making this decision. But Pierce was never going to stop coming for you." I swallowed hard. "You listened to my gut instinct before."

He nodded, slowly, remembering and frowning as he tried to figure out what I meant.

An unsubstantial idea had grown in the back of my mind ever since hearing of his escape, and now I spoke it. "He made a break for it. Pierce would have counted on the military base for an escape attempt, for supporters, to disappear. He only would run if he knew he would never reach it." Max's scowl deepened and I spoke the words that chilled me when I realized them. "It was already important that we locate the weapons: now it's vital."

Michael swung through the door to the back room. Only Maria's gentle hand on his arm stopped him from full-on charging me. "He's going to use them," he blurted, an epiphany borne of a strategic mind, operating on the same wavelength it seemed I was capable of achieving with the right stimuli. "If he wasn't planning to already, they just went from planted evidence to a suicide run."

"He's got no hope, he knows he's dead, so he'll try to take himself out with them," Max said. His eyes tightened at the corners. "And as much of Roswell as he can in the process."

I stared him down. "One man or a town full of civilians. I think I can live with killing Pierce."

* * *

They must have had some sort of conversation via eyes, or vibes, or whatever it is Antarians communicate by. I didn't hear anyone telling Max to back off. But that's just what he did.


	3. A small crime

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any part of this series. Nor am I the intellect behind Bennie's fic _Conspiracy_.

**Summary**: Liz always knew a return to Roswell was in the cards. Five years after she left, Fate plucked that one from the deck. AU inspired by 'Conspiracy' (details inside).

**Author's Note**: This chapter does contain sexual content. Nothing is graphic, but if you feel uncomfortable with reading such, this is your only warning.

Title for this chapter is from the song "9 Crimes" by Damien Rice.

* * *

…

_A small crime__ (__The_ _wrong kind of place)_

…

For nearly an hour, we worked in a hub of activity. Reports filtered through the radio, my coworkers shared information with each other, and I labored to sign papers and sort through data and read every update that passed my way. The front doors remained closed, but when it did open with the light tinkle of a bell I looked up.

Agent Sully entered the café.

I shot to my feet. Vasquez was already at his side, taking his statement. Professional as ever, Sully delivered a bare-bones report while holding a stained rag to his bleeding head. His eyes met mine over Vasquez's shoulder. His jaw was clenched too tightly.

From behind him, two uninjured agents carried between them a man I was not expecting to see. "Alex!" The Antarians directed my agents to lift him onto the counter, the only place long enough to support his entire lanky frame besides the ground.

I should have continued to work, or gone to hear a first-hand account from my injured subordinate. I should have done my best to find answers from others and let them be. But I was selfish.

My steps led me not to Sully, but to Alex. I reached out one hand to grasp his limply dangling one, and the other sought someone else's without conscious direction. It gripped mine just as fiercely. I didn't even think about the action until I looked up and Maria's eyes were on mine, tears trickling over her cheeks, and I slid from holding her hand to wrapping one arm around her body effortlessly.

Maria. The girl I grew up with, the girl who became a woman without me being around to see it, the girl whose hands braided my hair and whose laughter lit my own, who danced during our shifts and sang like a siren.

And Alex, who was with me every step of my life up until five years ago. He was a confidant and a companion, with a whip-crack mind and a heart as wide as the desert and burning twice as hot. The shock of Alex being injured made my ribs feel like they were under a heavy stone.

He couldn't _die_. I didn't even have him back.

Someone had removed Alex's shirt, leaving us with a clear view of blood-streaked skin, a deep indent bubbling over with dark red. Max's hand pressed over it. I remembered: he was the strongest healer in the Antarian community.

For too long a minute we waited. Without my report I didn't know how long Alex had been injured, how close he was to leaving us, why he had been in the line of fire. I knew gunshot wounds from sight. Had Pierce taken a gun off one of my agents, or were we not thorough enough?

Our mistake. My failure.

Though his condition did not appear to change, Alex's eyelids fluttered, a crack of pale blue flaring against the overhead lights. My knuckles went white over his hand.

Max leaned over him, forcing eye contact, and murmuring, "Focus. Look at me. Stay here, Alex." With each plea came more clarity in Alex's eyes.

When Max lifted his hand away from smooth, un-punctured flesh, I turned my head into Maria's neck. Her hand patted my back soothingly, but slowly.

Her hesitation brought reality back.

Nothing had been discussed, nothing was resolved, and I had made a point to show no weakness up until then. She probably had no clue how to react, now that our shared fear was given relief. I straightened and brushed away tears.

I released Alex's hand, though he reached for it when we were no longer touching. His eyes were wide and soft. "Hey, there," he said, sounding far too weak for my taste.

A small smile cracked my dry lips. I nodded. He blinked at the faces surrounding him, absorbing his change in location.

I was suddenly, sharply aware of Antarians, everyone reaching to one another. A connection between each of them, like a spiderweb connecting person to person, several different hands linking Alex to the others. Physical representations of connection and support. My parents clasped hands and his shoulders, as if he were an adopted son come back to the fold. My friends each touched some part of him and each other: hands entwined, on forearms, around waists. It was beautiful.

And I was excluded from the web.

It was like seeing exactly what drove me from home.

I dropped my arm from Maria. "An agent will come by to take your statement," I said. "Excuse me."

* * *

There were protests. My name was called.

I didn't turn my back out of spite. Not out of wounded feelings, bruised pride, or misplaced teenage angst.

I walked away because I remembered why I was in Roswell.

* * *

I grabbed Sully by the shoulder and shoved him into a chair. "Agent Sully," I said conversationally, whipping the rag off his head. A grunt worker bee began examining the wound. Brave girl, getting so close to this confrontation. "Why the fuck do I have a dead alien and two dead agents?"

He recited what Vasquez had already taken down. Deciding time was of the essence, he plotted a direct path instead of going round-about. In a remote area between houses on a long stretch of road, Pierce slipped the cuffs and hit Sully on the back of the head. Sully swerved into a ditch and his skull bounced off the steering wheel. Pierce snatched the gun from Grath, shot him and Halper, and smashed their cells and radios.

When he regained consciousness, Sully found Alex and an older woman a mile down the road as he ran for a call box. The woman insisted that Sully make it to the phone box and come back to help them. She was applying pressure to Alex's wound when he resumed running. She fell unconscious before Sully returned. By the time the medics arrived, she was simply too weak.

"Did her hair have red streaks?" I asked.

"Yes, actually."

Alex's grandmother. She liked it because she said it reminded her of the ocean. I never understood until Larek told me that the ocean on Antar had shimmered ruby-red. Sometimes she and Alex would take walks together, long ones between her house and her neighbor's.

She liked to walk. Loved to see the stars.

I told Sully to get some rest and obey the doctors. Clapped him on the shoulder. And got back to work.

* * *

When the sun sank beyond the horizon, I stood and looked out the window.

The streetlights were just starting to cast a weary yellow glow on nearly empty streets. SUVs passed at the end of the block. Some men were stationed on foot, especially near our base of operations, and many bustling emergency workers were using this street as their own headquarters with tents, super-white lights, and folding tables. Further out, in widening patterns, my people searched for the bombs Pierce dragged into my peaceful little hometown. And out in the desert somewhere, Pierce was planning his next move.

Most of the Antarians trickled out, Alex included. Maria helped take him to the back of the Crashdown, and probably up the stairs to my parent's living area. I didn't look up when Max and Isabel left. Michael dragged himself out a half-hour later. I vaguely registered Tess and Kyle sitting at the counter, likely the council members who volunteered to stay with Safeguard for the night shift.

And now I studied the sky through the café glass. The stars were just starting to appear in the sky.

They burned so brightly. Even the light pollution of the city couldn't completely block them out. I wondered which one was theirs, the star they could never return to, the home they had left behind.

Maybe I didn't inherit my need to run: maybe it had passed down through them to me, through some alien connection. I couldn't remember if they had always seemed like a sedentary community, or if a lingering wildness bubbled under the surface. If a nomadic desire ran through their veins, an exploratory past echoing in the way they looked at the horizon and taught me to see.

Or did I just wish that I still had a connection to these people?

* * *

I stood at the window long enough that when a mug of coffee tentatively pushed at my arm, I startled. Wiping a hand over my face, I slipped my hand around it mechanically. "Thank you," I said, before looking at the person who handed it to me.

My mother. Her face was so tired. I had never seen her look like this before.

Ignoring her over these hours in Roswell was hard. All my effort came crumbling down when she was a foot away from me. I couldn't repress the rush of anger, the swell of pain, the bitter joy and the sweet sadness.

Her lips pressed then parted. "You're welcome." So long, since I heard her speak last—the tone of bells clung to her vowels, staccato syllables caressing my ear.

Stiffness was unnatural to us. This was the woman I always considered my mother. "How are you doing?" I asked.

Her chin wavered. "Good," she almost-whispered, cleared her throat. "We'll get through this," she added, stronger.

"We'll pay," I said, hesitated, adjusted my grip on the mug. "I mean, for your assistance. Thank you for allowing my agents to take over the café. Your business will be compensated for your efforts."

She waved her hand. "It's the least we can do." Her eyes misted. "It's good to see you here again."

I blinked rapidly to clear my sight of her freckled face, her brilliant hair, that loving smile. "Yeah," I murmured. Then, slipping on the end of a breath past any semblance of professionalism, I added, "I missed you, Mom."

Spillover. A droplet rolled down her cheek from the outer corner of her eye. She nodded, too overcome by some strong emotion to speak.

Abruptly, I realized that if their distance had an effect on me, then my distance also had consequences. They had their reasons for keeping me in the dark. But my anger and hurt only kept me out of the loop of their love. My leaving tore a hole in the walls of their hearts.

I left because I felt unloved and secluded and tired. And maybe they played a role in that, because of all the secrets layered between us, keeping me at a distance. They probably didn't understand that I left for me. I left because I couldn't stand a distance I did not understand.

Not because—_never_ because—I didn't love them.

My parents, my friends, Max, even the extended community of Roswell, all had a place in my heart.

This was hardly the time to say the words. Not the right location, either. There was a lot to accomplish, and I couldn't let myself fall into my mother's arms. Not yet. The moment I did, I'd have to let all my walls down, relax my careful control. And I could not afford that until Pierce was no longer a threat.

I made a promise to myself, though. Smiling tentatively at my mother, sharing a quiet moment with her, I told myself that I would tell all of Roswell that I loved them.

If only by protecting them to my last breath.

* * *

Hours later, Vasquez reminded me of the time and my standing instructions for rotation. I turned over our established base to the night shift fresh from naptime. Our organization had taken a motel best suited for our purposes. My tired, weary workers took their leave.

Of the Antarian audience, only Kyle, Tess, and my mother still lingered at the counter.

My choice: leave without a professional word of courtesy, or avoid repeating the past. No choice.

Vasquez waited at the door, tapping her toes against the tile. I nodded to Kyle and Tess, spoke to my mother. "These second-shift agents will continue working through the night. We'll switch out again in the morning if necessary. I advise you all to get some rest."

My mother smiled blandly, as if patronizing my latest kitchen experiment. "We'll keep the coffee coming," she said.

I wished in my weakness for a hug and clung to the cuffs of my suit jacket. Her eyes were large pools, the faint dusting of freckles standing dark against her pale skin. Weariness lined her face.

As I turned to leave, Tess slid off the high counter stool. The light from the kitchen lit her from behind. In an instant she appeared regal to me, more than a classmate from high school. "You aren't stopping now." Not a command, not a question.

I gestured with the folders in my hands. "I don't need all the resources here."

"So you have everything you need?" One pale eyebrow arched.

My mother remained silent. Kyle glanced between the two of us. I shifted back on my heels, seeing the twitch of calculation in her lips. "Yes. If there's nothing else," I said, "I'll be on my way."

Tess waved a hand, a gentle dismissal. "We all need a little bit of sleep tonight." A faint up-twitch of her lips. I hesitated, but couldn't think of an explanation for the faint unease in the back of my mind. Her words were innocuous enough: why was I reading into them so much? We barely spoke over the years we attended school together. Maybe that was why it seemed like an iceberg loomed, just out of sight.

I left the Crashdown as quietly as I had the last time.

* * *

The former queen had reassumed a position of authority and, in the absence of Max, made decisions for Antarian matters. I didn't know how to feel about her clear resumption of the throne.

Larek told me that she was enamored of life as a human teenager, which caused conflict and the eventual dissolution of her marriage. Max was unable to give up his responsibilities and let their relationship peacefully dissolve.

These questions played in my mind:

How did he feel for her, when he seemed interested in me? Would Pierce's intrusion lead to the end of their separation?

Or had it already?

* * *

Vasquez accompanied me to my motel room, a second-story mid-row cube at a cheap place halfway to the outskirts of town. She dropped files on the table and eyed equipment which had been carted in by one of my teams. "Need help setting up that junk?" she asked.

"I would appreciate it."

We remained mostly silent while we worked. She knew that I wasn't going to get much—if any—shut-eye. She knew that I needed time away from our base of operations. She knew I needed food—one of our lackeys brought in a large loaded pizza as we set up the wall of evidence—and she also knew that I couldn't be alone in my room. Not right now.

Not until the security detail cleared the immediate area and established a perimeter.

Because Pierce would never be able to penetrate the Crashdown without crossing some serious lines of defense, it was a relatively safe area. The motel was not out in the middle of the desert, but it was off-set from the center of town. It wasn't as defensible. And my past history with Pierce, his desperation, and his abilities, made me a tempting target.

Bait.

* * *

She knew and the Director knew and I knew about the plan.

Vasquez and I had worked it out on paper as she brought me reports and documents today. She set it in motion while I was under the assessing eyes of Antarians and agents under my command. The motel was completely covered, with a constructed hole Pierce could access. Every angle was covered. If he made a move, they would wait and close the trap on him before he could reach my room.

Larek agreed only because it was a slim chance. Being bait depended on Pierce knowing my movements. If he came, we would know there were moles in our organization. Though Director Larek was certain of his abilities, I wanted to be absolutely certain.

If Pierce came, we had more problems than my possible peril.

* * *

I changed out of my suit. Pajama pants and a tank top were a release from the role and position defining me. My wardrobe change exposed the scar on my arm and the bruise on my shoulder, my unpolished bare feet and loosely wavy hair. I figured I might as well be comfortable.

Vasquez and I settled, spread papers over tables and one of the beds. Pens in hand, radio low, pizza slowly disappearing, we worked on what we could. We made small decisions that she would radio in before sleeping. We sat in silence—until.

A knock.

The door wobbled in the frame. "Heavy hand," Vasquez commented. Her own lingered over the pistol strapped to her thigh.

I scratched at my arm, trying to avoid catching my fingernails on scar tissue. "Think the graveyard shift got anywhere?"

"Maybe. They'd be working hard if we're sticking with the deadline of 'tomorrow'." I avoided meeting her eyes as I rose from my chair. Her quiet knowledge was sometimes difficult when I wanted nothing more than to hide. Had I been blatant about my discomfort, despite trying to achieve total professionalism?

No use worrying over it. "It will take as long as it takes," I said, reaching for the doorknob. "It's not up to me." I opened it. "HQ might want us on-site—"

Max shifted from one foot to the other.

He lowered his knocking-hand and slipped it into his pocket, the crease between his eyebrows wavering between shallow and deep. My stomach felt as wobbly as the door. Any possible greeting escaped me.

From her comfortable seat, Vasquez called, "Should I add your recommendation to the Director's update?"

I was a breath too long for the natural rhythm of a conversation. "Yes."

Yellowed light-bulbs illuminated his profile from the side. It cast a shine to his dark hair, shadowed his eyes a hint too darkly. His chin was tilted at a stubborn angle, but his eyes gazed behind me, from one side to the other, and caught on something. The faintest blush covered his cheeks.

I reviewed my mental map of the dingy motel room. Pizza box open on the small table, to the right of a desk scattered with papers and file folders, a haphazard assemblage of pinned pictures and scraps on the wall above it. On the opposite wall, in full view of the door, a tiny radio buzzed a low-volume stream of background hits on the bedside table between two queen-size, slightly rumpled beds. Between the table and the nightstand was a gap, through which was access to the tiny bathroom with neatly-folded towels, robe, and a suitcase stuffed under the sink.

Vasquez moved. I turned to see her sit on the furthest bed, where piles of equipment rested in semi-order. She had the field phone in her hands and rifled through a bag near the headboard. A subtle nudge (he couldn't be allowed to listen to a classified conversation).

Max backed all the way to the railing when I stepped closer, as though chasing him from my room. I closed the door, arms folded behind my back and grasping the handle. The distance of the walkway gaped between us.

Outside was quiet. The faint hums of insect life in the bushes, a car engine a street over, the buzz of electricity. Those sounds fell away even as I met his gaze.

Max's eyes were human-dark. But as he rested his palms on the railing behind him, the shadows around him seemed to intensify. Undercurrents pushed at our boundaries.

"Do you need something?" My voice seemed too loud.

"I needed—" His shoulders tensed. "I wanted to ask you something, Agent."

No prepared speech, no squared shoulders. Instead of pushing now that we were alone, he kept to titles instead of names.

Somehow Max suddenly seemed so alien. The boy I knew five years ago would have been boiling underneath, had always seemed to have many more words than those actually released. This version of him was the cool, collected king of a refugee people, meeting a representative of their sanctuary's government. This man was not going to demand that conversation we put off once we were alone.

I folded my arms in front of my stomach. "What is it? I've told you everything I know about the case."

"Not quite," he said. A muscle in his jaw twitched. "Tell me about Pierce."

Brushing loose hair from my face, I reminded him, "We are doing the best we can. My agents are some of the most capable people in their fields. We will find him."

He shook his head. "That's reassuring, but I meant from our first conversation in city hall. You told Michael and me most of the story," he said. "But you held something back. I would like to know what it was."

A personal conversation with professional distance—was it meant to put me off-balance?

It was working. "Why do you think that?"

"Agent," he said, looking at the ground. He scuffed one heel on the bottom of the railing. "My second-in-command pays very close attention to details. He was suspicious about some wording you used, and the method of conversation between yourself and one of your lead agents." He nodded to the door behind my back. "Additionally, there's the matter of removing yourself from your established base into a less secure area." He looked over his shoulder at the parking lot below. "That's either a thoughtless mistake or a calculated risk."

I knew he paid attention, for himself and for his people, as a ruler and as an intelligent person. And still I underestimated him.

"I can't force you not to do dangerous things. I can't control you. I know that now," he said. My shoulder-blades scrunched together at the slippage. Yet instead of pushing into personal territory, again he maneuvered back from the edge. "But for the sake of Roswell as the place my people take refuge, I need to know what you're hiding about that makes you so tempting a target."

Being close to him made it hard to think. I edged sideways, a few feet, just enough to feel the night air on my skin.

"I told you I was undercover in his department. It's not much more than that." Again, it felt like a lie. Maybe because what I had wanted was different. "He was my mentor." I turned to the parking lot and looked up at the stars. "He was my friend. I thought." I cleared my throat. "And I thought he could be trusted. I was wrong." My words rang like a bad echo.

Without the façade of a work-related conversation, it would have been much harder to tell the story. Weird enough telling it to a man who once told me that he loved me. Stranger still to recall a brief hero-worship crush. A crush I never acted upon, that died the more I learned about him—but, something which did exist for a time. A distraction from memories of a boy in a hometown I didn't want to remember.

Maybe he could hear what I buried underneath the facts. Maybe he could hear it in my voice, feel it from me. His voice was gruff. "What did you trust him with?"

* * *

I knew what he probably suspected. But it wasn't sex.

I had reasons to stay away from Roswell after I joined Safeguard.

I had killed. And I might have made a crucial mistake.

* * *

Like it was perfectly planned, we were interrupted by my motel room door.

Vasquez stepped out. I met her eyes over Max's shoulder. She didn't seem to notice his stiff posture or the angle of my body. "I'll check in with the patrol and call it a night, ma'am," she said.

"Dismissed, agent." She turned her back to us and walked away.

I scanned the parking lot below. Vasquez did have duties to perform, but I thought that she suspected our talk was taking a turn for the personal. And I appreciated her subtle release of space, but I didn't want to retreat from this conversation.

Although she was barely out hearing range, I did not halt my tongue. "You have reason to hate me." I willingly cracked my professional boundary.

"Liz—"

And he tore the rest of it down in a single syllable. As if knowing intuitively that the conversation we had cut off in city hall could no longer be subdued.

Here and now was better than before, possibly the best time we would have. He deserved to hear it, and I deserved to say it.

"I don't begrudge you that. Maybe, in a sick way, I suppose I now understand why I was always an outsider." I braced my hands against the railing. "I think of Roswell as home. Still call Mom and Dad my parents. But Roswell's not really mine. It's Antar's." A rough smile curled my lips.

Gentle as the desert breeze, he said, "If you think of Roswell as home, then it's yours. And it always will be. We still want you with us."

Even though I made the decision to open this conversation to my brutal revelation, it took time to get my words in order.

So I told him things that had festered inside of me. "For a long time before I left, I thought there a conspiracy to keep me out. I couldn't understand why no one trusted me."

"We did. We do." His voice was so sharp my head turned. He came closer. "Liz, I wish I knew how to fix what I did wrong. I wish so many things that I know I won't get but I swear to you, if you believe nothing else that I say, it was never about our trust in you."

Larek told me the same. To hear it here, from him, dug deeper than anything else and burned like a hot coal in my chest. I didn't know how to answer. I remembered the last time he looked at me so intensely and—"I never explained why I left."

He shook his head. "Because we failed you."

The defeat in his voice jolted me: he wasn't thinking in plural. "You didn't fail me."

Right on my wavelength, his eyes colored with old hurt. "But you didn't believe me. And you didn't feel the same way."

I shook my head, turned away from the railing, towards him. "Declarations of love are hard enough when you're a normal person. And despite however much you learn about people, you're still Antarian. You form different types of bonds. Types a human just doesn't."

His head dipped as if I had scolded. "Shallow empathy. It's not invasive. It's like an extra sense."

I nodded. "Humans can feel a lot of things, but we aren't connected like that."

The tension in his jaw softened. "Maria thought of that. Because they knew I felt—" he waved a hand between us. "But somehow we missed the simple fact that you couldn't receive our vibes."

"I thought of that, when I found out about you all. But by then I couldn't come back." He flinched. It was slight, but it was there. I winced. "Not like—"

"It's okay." But his shoulders were angling back towards the parking lot, chin tucked towards his chest.

I saw defeat in the line of his back. And I couldn't let him hurt like that.

* * *

For the first time, I reached out and touched his arm.

* * *

His skin felt so warm under my fingertips. A T-shirt in the cool night air, as bad a choice as my tank top, just as clearly indicating he hadn't expected to be in the desert night. Dark eyes met mine.

"I had things to do before I came back," I said. "Back then, if you made me stay I would have shriveled. You couldn't keep me, not as the girl I used to be." The words I thought long ago came back to me. "You can lock a person up and keep their body there, but in the end that's all you're going to have. A body." My eyes slid to the parking lot, empty of most vehicles except for his and mine. "I needed to breathe alone for a while. I needed out from your protection to find my own strength."

"And you did." His hand came up to cover my own. "You're different. I always knew you would change when the human world influenced you." He ducked his head slightly, the faintest flush of shame coloring his cheeks. "For a long time, I mourned. I thought you'd lose everything that made you Liz. Another of my failures." I opened my mouth to argue and he pushed on, eager to get the words out. "But this was a good change. I've never seen you so confident, so determined. At peace with yourself." His expression was so soft, so open. "Maybe it's selfish, but I wish I could have helped you get there."

Some strange joy lit up inside of me, some pressure to release a little more. So I confessed, "When I wanted to go to college, I never meant to leave and never return. I applied to universities in the state, planned for weekend visits and holidays and maybe with a degree, come back to do research on desert flora and fauna." A faint smile twitched at my lips. "What I wanted was time and freedom before I could commit."

So free. I felt like I could fly if I stepped off the railing beside us.

"I should have listened," he said. He glanced to the empty lot, as if by habit he had to scan for danger. I didn't bother to tell him there were security teams in the area: he probably knew that already. "You said before I'm not a king here. Our community is so insular, it gets us all a little stuck to our old lives. Tess was able to move on. I don't have that luxury. I have memories of a lifetime being raised to rule." My thumb rubbed a circle on his arm. "But being here makes me feel as young as you are in some ways. I should have remembered that humans have different needs. I should have realized that I can't control another person." A self-deprecating smile flickered over his lips. "I should have figured out you couldn't receive our vibes."

A forgotten sensation… "I think I did, though." His head tilted to one side. "Peripherally, not consciously. Even when I was convinced of a conspiracy and hurt the most, I never felt unsafe. I never felt like there was malevolent intent. I was just so hurt that I wasn't deemed trustworthy. And that others seemed to think they could control my life without any input from me."

He winced and his hands came up to cup my biceps. "We were wrong to keep so many choices from you, but it was never about trust, Liz. It was—it was complicated, at first you were just a baby, and then you were growing up and human children are notoriously bad secret keepers, and then you were older and I just wanted you to be happy and safe and if you never had to know that we lied or that there was danger—"

Oh. How could I forget?

"But you were right." I stepped back.

His eyes flashed. "Is this about Pierce?" Reaching towards me, he stopped when I stepped back. "Liz, whatever you think is so horrible, I can promise you that we will not hate you." And for an instant, an alien darkness invaded his eyes. "I could never hate you."

Maybe that should have scared me a little, but I had come to realize that very strong emotion, when Max wasn't completely controlling himself, riled up a side of him I had never seen before. I didn't feel threatened or scared by it, though.

My confession was what scared me. On my third inhale, I told him.

"As we got closer, and went out into the field together, Pierce and I talked about more personal things. I told him that, growing up in Roswell, I felt like an alien." A faintly hysterical laugh bubbled in my throat and I swallowed it. "I never explained it, any lie works best based off of a truth and I told him it was silly teen angst, but Ma—Zan," I corrected myself. "I think _I_ made him curious enough to look."

* * *

If it were my fault that Pierce came here…

…I didn't know how to process. The thought had rotted away inside my skull for over a week.

Whatever reaction came from him, I just knew I deserved it.

* * *

I didn't know what to expect. My stomach felt full of pop rocks and Coke.

But he stepped towards me and I couldn't step away—what right did I have to step away? He stepped right into my personal space and I didn't feel intimidated. I only felt protected. Were these the mysterious vibes I had never known I felt? Was that why, even looming over me with every reason to be angry, I felt completely safe?

Then I saw the relaxed lines around his mouth, and the soft corners of his eyes. He lifted one hand to my shoulder. "You don't know that."

Why was he not telling me they were right all along to keep me in the dark? "I—"

"Even if," he interrupted me, "Pierce took anything you said as reason to look at us, that doesn't change what I said. It doesn't change how I feel about you."

* * *

I knew the Max of high school had feelings for me, the Max of five years ago had confessed love for me, and that I couldn't deny my own attraction to him.

The Max of now was a wholly different being. Maybe I was differentiating too strongly between the person he was throughout my entire life and who he must have, might have, become in my absence. Whether true or false, there had to be a difference. How could he feel the same way after all the time we spent apart, thinking we would never see each other face to face again? Thinking that we would never know about the other?

I had adjusted more during my time with Larek because I worked through the truth. And I knew myself well enough to know that, perhaps, I could someday love this man.

This man who was not my captor, but my ally.

* * *

He looked at me. And I looked at him.

I saw the shades of silver in the edges of his iris, a tell-tale flicker that emotions were right under the surface, that he was only human-eyed for now. If we pushed on I would see more of that consuming pupil. He stood so close I could feel the heat of his body—and I could feel that my body was reacting.

The last time I felt like this around him, I ended up grinding on his lap. While the encounter had ended in my decisive departure from Roswell, the sense memory was hardly negative. My heart sped. His eyes flickered to my neck, to my collarbone and sternum, dragging up to my lips, the tip of my nose, my eyes.

His pupils blew all the way over the iris. It was fascinating to watch from this range. Time slowed to let me see. The darkness lingered at the edges, not quite to the whites of his eyes, lingering on the precipice of totally consuming his human appearance. I doubted he was aware of it. I wouldn't have seen his dark eyes grow so much darker if not for our proximity.

The silence had lingered after he spoke.

Until I gathered my courage. Until I asked, "How _do_ you feel, Zan?"

"My name," he said, stern, yet in contradiction, breathless, "is Max." The backs of his fingers brushed the skin of my arm. "Liz." Pointedly.

I could practically feel the warmth of his breath mingling with mine. Goosebumps rose on my arms—not from the cool night air, but from the repetitious brush of his fingers on my skin.

The thought flashed through my mind that this was probably not a good idea. In a vague effort to recreate space, the first thing I could think to say was, "We agreed to postpone this conversation."

"We've already been having it." One corner of his mouth twitched. The rumpled hairs that flopped across his forehead brushed mine.

"I just need control, Zan. Max." Which name? I swallowed. "I need…" A nudge of fingertips on my other arm, a gentle brushing motion towards him. It was careful, unexpected, and my resistance waned.

"You haven't been in control since you arrived," he said. Our foreheads were touching, no more space. "I've been watching you. You know that. I can tell when you feel me watching you." He nodded, a tiny movement which moved my head with his.

"Oh?"

Such a pointless response, but he responded with noise of his own. "Mmhm." My heart beat against my ribs, feeling black and blue but not done yet, exhilarated by the sensation of my hand on his chest. I could feel some truly wonderful muscles. "You've been projecting. So many emotions. It's unusual but common under stress."

"Stress does some crazy things to people." My eyelids flickered. "And people do some crazy things." He smelled like I remembered in the car. So long ago, in that Jeep, I had no inhibitions. Why was I trying to stop now?

"Yeah?" Questioning tone, pushing at more than my replies, more than the way my hand was sliding up to his collar and a few hot inches separated our entire bodies.

Though his eyes were so close to mine, one last flutter of my eyelashes caught how the whites of his eyes were nearly eclipsed.

"Yeah." That was it. "Max—"

I cut myself off when my arm slipped around the back of his neck, skimming hot skin and thick cotton, and I pulled myself up towards his lips. Or he cut me off when his arms slid down from my elbows and wrapped around my back, my waist, pulling me up towards him.

Either way. Our lips met.

* * *

After that, things were a haze: stars behind my eyelids; the thin railing against my lower back, then under my hips; warm skin under my fingertips and thick hair twisted closer to my knuckles; his hands branding heat to my thighs, my back, my face; the insistent press and scorch between my legs as they drew his hips closer.

I remember that he lifted me away from the railing. I spared a brief thought for my security, but they would maintain their positions and couldn't see us anyway. My back pressed to the stucco wall outside my room and I recalled that I did not have my key, wondered vaguely with Max's lips on my throat how Vasquez expected me to get back in without one. But his hand removed support from the back of my thigh and he touched the door and I remembered what he could do.

Then I didn't care anymore, letting my legs fall from around his waist to back into my room, tugging him along by the shirt collar. He came willingly, our lips never far apart. I used his weight to shut the door, pressing him back as I worked at the hem of his shirt, eager to feel more skin under my hands and against my own.

We ended up on the bed as some point. We ended up slick skin on skin, sweat and panting and moans. His thick fingers stretching me open, making me cry out and writhe against his body. My fingers stroking him to an unexpected climax, his teeth sinking into my shoulder as his muscles clenched in rippling waves. We wound our bodies, came together again and again: his chest to my back, his body spread out beneath me, mine arching up into his.

And when we settled after hours of very personal interaction, I drifted to sleep curled close to his chest.

* * *

When I woke the lingering pre-dawn had just shifted to sunrise. Strips of wall glimmered red, filtering through sheer white curtains.

For a long minute, I lay in bed and let my brain catch up to the good ache of a well-used body. Let my senses spread around the room, cataloguing the scents and sounds of the space. The still-warm sheets beside me, unoccupied.

My eyes cracked open. Underneath strands of tossed-about hair, I peered at a man standing by the sink. He had pulled boxers on. I could see red streaks along his shoulder-blades. Evidence of my loss of control.

As I watched, he scooped a handful of water from the sink and rubbed his face. When he lifted his head, he didn't look in the mirror. Max turned and walked between the second bed and my mind-blurt wall. He paused, head tilted as he studied it.

I wasn't sure what I felt, but I knew that his clothes were closer to the door. He had easy access to them if he kept walking in a straight line. Regardless: "That's classified."

Neither of us winced at my ill-used voice. No hint of a startle showed on his face. I pushed myself up, tugging a sheet modestly along with me. Though I saw only tenderness, I had to add, "Planning on a quick getaway?"

My shoulders relaxed when, eyes warm and faint smile turning up his lips, Max sat on the edge of my bed. Hips parallel to mine, he leaned over and engaged me in a gentle kiss.

It quickly turned from chaste to deep, as I slipped a hand around the back of his head and tugged him over, laying back down an inch at a time. He shifted along with me, body quickly lining up with mine atop the sheets. When he finally broke the kiss, it was only to place more along my jaw. My hands went to his back, brushing along the nail tracks I had left behind.

A throat-shallow sound came from him at the motion of my hands. "Why don't you heal them?" I suggested. He lifted his head. I saw that pain was not the cause of that sound. "Oh," I said, raising an eyebrow. "Interesting."

His fingers trailed down my sternum and I shivered. "Going Vulcan on me?" he teased. "You know more adjectives than that." The swiftly-blown pupil told me that he was in a playful mood, and definitely also in an adult mood—as if the slowly-driving-me-crazy grinding hadn't already made the point.

"Not at the moment," I managed. One of my hands cupped his cheek, stroking the skin under one fully alien-black eye.

The motion must have suggested it, because he quickly closed his eyes and ducked his head, the motion of his hips stuttering. That answered the question of whether he was aware of the possibility, though not necessarily without someone else pointing out that it had happened.

I bucked my hips and, catching him by surprise, rolled him to his back. He gasped, and froze when I leaned down, cupping his face in my hands. "Don't hide from me." The sheet had fallen between us, now covering him instead of me. "I saw your eyes plenty last night."

His smile was sheepish, mixed with lustful. I sighed as his hands stroked my now-exposed skin and I let my head fall back, hands trailing down his chest as I sat back, enjoying the sensation against my core. I rocked slightly, letting him ease into that thought.

He sat up. I smiled when our eyes met again, smiled as he kissed me and adjusted me over him, helping shove at the sheet between us until it fell away, reshuffling our positions until his boxers were gone, too. I locked eyes with him in the early morning light, allowing myself not to look away even when the intensity of his length impaling me threatened to have me throw my head back. Even when he drove into me and the muscles in my legs quivered. Even when our foreheads clunked together and pressed, helping both of us hold on to that much needed visual connection until finally, I simply couldn't keep my eyes open under the force of my climax.

But by then, the point was made—and by then, his lips on my neck easing my way back down, I knew there was pleasure in seeing me lose control like that. I liked it just as much when I got him to that point, felt powerful. Felt alive. Felt love.

* * *

We settled against the pillows. A tiny part of my brain kept reminding me that I was cuddling with an alien. And as captivated as I was by everything we were doing the night before, I had remained aware that there was something about the experience that went beyond fantastic. Explosive.

It was celestial.

Was that an alien thing? I felt emotions which matched mine so clearly, yet somehow I knew that they were not my own. Saw images of stars and a red sea, a planet glowing with vitality and then, as if in a nightmare, withering to decay. Creatures, or beings, with all the classical or typical appearance of aliens: domed head, pointed chin, giant black eyes, small thin bodies. They were all different shades of a thriving, vibrant gray.

None of this was mine. But it matched stories from Larek.

"Max." I shifted my head against his chest, peeking up at him. He hummed in response. "Did you—when we—did you happen to see anything?"

He stilled. Not frozen, but there was an expectant quiet about his limbs. His thumb ceased stroking my upper arm. "Like what?"

Haltingly, trying to find the words, I told him about the red ocean. The dying planet. "And I think—I think I saw what your people looked like," I finished. My fingers tapped restlessly on his chest. "Was that all from you?"

"Probably." His voice sounded slightly hoarse. I lifted my head, looking down at him. A small crease had formed between his eyebrows.

"What is it?" I could see words dancing in his head.

He bit his lip, but told me despite his half-hearted effort to hold it in. "I don't want you to think I regret this. I don't. But it probably wasn't the best decision to make so quickly."

For a moment, I didn't understand. And it hurt a little. But then, I had already thought of several reasons it was a bad idea (I was bait, Pierce was still not captured, we were both in the middle of a very stressful time in Roswell's existence). In addition… "You didn't know that would happen. None of you have ever—?"

"Not with humans," he said. The crease of worry on his forehead deepened. "I should have been more careful."

"_We_ should have," I corrected him, an internal wince as I thought of what we did not use. I was on birth control to regulate my cycle. But condoms prevented different things. "For the record, I don't regret this either. But I understand what you mean." I rested my chin on his chest. "We'll deal with any consequences which come from this kind of contact."

He sighed, nodded, but the crease only faded a little. His fingers traced the scar on my arm absently—at least, until he looked down at it. Then the caress was deliberate. "Work-related?" he asked.

"One of my less-organized early missions," I told him. "It was the first time I went into the field alone. Training can only take you so far."

His fingers travelled over the rough patch of my elbow, to my shoulder, down to my side, to my hip. It paused on a long-faded half-circle, a rough reminder of playground days. "Third grade," I said with a smile.

"I remember." When he saw my widened eyes, his cheeks flushed pink. "I wanted to heal it. I couldn't, though, that would have been…unpredictable."

"Not the best way to keep your cover of totally-normal-human."

He shook his head. "True, but more the fact that I have no idea what effect our energy might have on a human body." My smile gentled, and then faded when his eyes grew humanly dark. "Liz, be careful," he pleaded.

"I always try to be," I said. "Hey." I tapped my fingers on his chest. "No matter what happens to me in the field, I never want you to think you should have been able to protect me."

"If there was something I could have done, I'd never forgive myself for not trying."

I looked at him for a long minute. Did I trust him? Did I think that he would do anything in his power not to hurt me, accidentally? Did I believe that the unknown consequences were worth it?

No question about it.

"I trust your judgment." The flickering wonder in his eyes showed his understanding. "I think I can handle any consequences if you're beside me."

His arm, wrapped around my body, pulled me closer.

* * *

Eventually we had to return to reality.

He showered. I dressed, my usual slacks and button-up, sleeves dangling loose and brushing my hair back with my fingers. When he came out of the bathroom, his clothes looked starched and clean. I raised an eyebrow in the mirror, toothbrush moving in circles over my teeth.

Max lifted a hand in answer. I smiled around the bristles, then leaned over and spit into the sink. When I straightened again, I pretended not to feel the heat of his eyes on my lower back and hips. Instead, I started buttoning my sleeves and turned.

One all too brief kiss, pushed back against the sink counter, then I slipped on my suit jacket and we left the room together.


	4. Memory comes

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any part of this series. Nor am I the intellect behind Bennie's fic _Conspiracy_.

**Summary**: Liz always knew a return to Roswell was in the cards. Five years after she left, Fate plucked that one from the deck. AU inspired by 'Conspiracy' (details inside).

**Author's Note**: Title of this chapter is from the song "Keep the Streets Empty for Me" by Fever Ray.

* * *

…

_Memory comes (Whispering morning)_

…

There had to be a clue in the paper trail.

Pierce was still somewhere in the desert. Had he left behind a contingent of allies, whom he could contact for pick-up and assistance? If he thought that far ahead, then this became even more complicated. I thought it was a strong possibility since he had not come to the motel last night.

Though I appreciated the lack of interruptions, it was also concerning. I should have been irresistible. But then, bait depended on prey knowing that it was there.

I scanned what we dug up of Pierce's life. The pages took over the entire table. I leaned one knee on the chair seat, my hands holding tight to my hips. My elbows bent awkwardly out from underneath the rolled sleeves of my shirt. Professional appearance took a backseat when we were working down to the wire and all leads were turning up empty.

"Long," I called. Maybe something had changed in the last ten minutes.

Unfortunately, my response was, "Section eighteen clear, ma'am."

The systematic search had not turned up any weapons, and my teams were drawing closer to the center of town with every sweep. If he had stockpiled everything around the downtown area, if he made it past all patrols on his search for the explosives, he'd have us trapped. Our base of operations was only as good as our escape routes out.

The longer this went on, the more it seemed that we had no choice.

My eyes scanned habitually over the brightly lit street in front of the Crashdown. Hiding under shade covers, my agents worked despite the heat of the midday sun. Pierce should be taking refuge: even bent on a mission, the heat was too much. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking.

Was I willing to push our luck any longer?

I glanced at the counter, where Max's trusted council—everyone there from the day previous, including Alex and my parents, with the addition of Max's "parents" and Maria's "mother" and Kyle's "father"—lingered and chattered quietly, waiting like everyone else for word from the agents out in the field. These were the government officials of Antar, of both older and younger generations, and that was the only reason they were allowed inside our established base of operations.

Was I willing to wait any longer?

I allowed the privacy of my thoughts recede from professional distance. Max spoke with Michael. My eyes lingered for an instant on the angle of Max's body, the line of his back. Was our night a secret? Or did everyone know? Could I hope to hide it? I looked away, but the image lingered. His expression, stern and contemplative. Michael's crossed arms. Maria's fingers twirling a lock of hair. Alex leaning back on his heels. Kyle nudging his father, who was flirting with Maria's mother. My mom balancing the books, my dad pouring coffee for Max's parents while Isabel slid a plate of croissants down the counter. Ava leaning on the heels of her hands, eyes on my agents.

No. No, I was not going to wait.

"Vasquez." I rubbed my forehead, trying to organize my thoughts. She showed up at my elbow with the report in hand, thinking I just wanted a stack of papers compiling all our data. But when she had returned to her makeshift desk I opened it atop the papers at my table, pulled out my secure cell phone, and speed-dialed the only number it contained.

"This is Parker, reporting."

* * *

My agents kept working diligently, unaware of my actions until I spoke in a mostly-quiet room to someone who was not physically present. I let the Antarians see my profile, not wanting to hide my expression and make them nervous, but also not wanting to look at them directly.

The tension would have been tangible even if I couldn't see stiff bodies from the corner of my eye.

* * *

In my ear, a tinny speaker emitted, "Go ahead."

"No progress, sir."

"We must assume the worst." A whistling crackle of air blowing over the speaker. "Well, we were reaching the end of the time frame. Very well. Use the searched areas. He can't move the explosives, and blowing up an empty town cannot be his goal. Perhaps we can flush him out if his plans are failing."

"Yes, sir."

"Bring the officials, and anyone else he deems important enough to keep close. I think that it's time Zan was made fully aware of his allies."

"Yes, sir."

"And Liz?" A brief pause. "You've done everything as well as you were trained far. No hesitation."

"None." A faint smile tugged at my lips and I fought it down. The familiar encouragement bolstered my fraying nerves. "I'll see it done, Director."

"I shall see you soon."

I clicked the phone off without a word of farewell—a promise that he would hear me greet him in the coming hours. I left it on the table and faced the wall behind me.

I debated a few minute details. Once I gave the orders, these agents would be packing and ready to go within the hour.

"Ma'am?" Vasquez eyed the Antarians.

I inhaled the distinctive diner scent. Such a short time back but I'd miss it all over again: the grill and fryer, always-hot coffee pots, and lemon-scented floor cleaner.

My chin tilted down and I told Vasquez, "Link to all teams. New orders." I waved a hand in the direction of the non-agent party, a come-closer gesture which I only followed up with a look after I had a radio in my hands. I met Max's concerned eyes over the table, suddenly so close, and asked, "Do you have a way to contact all of your people?"

He hesitated. My shoulders tightened. Vasquez was in a flurry of signaling all team leaders to receive my orders. Then he nodded. "What's going on?"

"You need to tell them to cooperate with my agents."

He opened his mouth, to ask again, and Vasquez pressed the radio mouthpiece into my hand. Without removing my eyes from his, I spoke into the open line. "Code yellow, I repeat, code yellow. All second wave teams continue search grids. All first wave teams switch to evacuation." He stiffened, eyes flying wide open. "Repeat: code yellow. Evacuation procedures begin immediately."

* * *

Acknowledgments came in, but Vasquez dealt with them. I relinquished the radio mouthpiece to her and focused on the Antarians. All around us, my agents were in a flurry of motion. Men and women who had seemed completely detached from their surroundings were packing and preparing for departure.

I stepped away from the hubbub and directed us back toward the counter. While some seemed shell-shocked, for the most part they were accepting. But I could see how resistant they were to the idea, and that concerned me.

The individuals who posed as parents were all on phones. It seemed there was a phone tree set up. That would save some time.

I was a little shaky when I realized I was surrounded by my friends, by my peers. By people who looked like they were treading a line between wanting answers and not wanting to push me.

I pushed at the sleeves of my shirt. "We're leaving within the hour," I told Max, deciding to concentrate on him as leader. "You and your officials are going to a safe house. All civilians will be taken to already-searched areas."

His eyes narrowed. "You want me to leave people behind."

I shook my head. "We cannot risk a mass exodus without getting other branches of the government involved. The majority of my agents will remain here to guard them."

"Why can't we stay here to be near them? The Crashdown was used all night," Isabel bit at her lip. "Isn't it safe?"

"This base of operations might not be rigged, but the searches have been coming in closer and closer," Michael reminded her. He eyed me. "If we don't leave before he gets to the explosives, there won't be any escape routes."

I nodded. Max crossed his arms. Tess eyed me with interest, looked her former husband, and then a faint smile twitched at her lips. In the back corner of my mind, far from my mouth, I wondered if she knew what went on the night before. What she thought about it.

Not the time, not the place.

She clapped her hands together. "Everyone your Director would consider important is already here. Word of the evacuation will spread quickly," she told me.

My eyes flickered between her and people on their phones. "The Director considers all of your people important," I said, diplomacy flexing its wings in my brain. "But they will be safe with our protection. And there are some matters you may wish to discuss with the Director."

"Yes." Max's stern gaze was not focused on my face, but I felt the shiver of aligning vertebrae up my spine anyway. "I have a lot of questions."

"Think we all do, pally," Maria muttered, pulling at her thumbnail with her teeth.

I looked at her without thinking about it, wincing when her expression turned from morose to a mixture of angry and guilty. This wasn't the time, any more than it had been with Max earlier.

"Ma'am," Vasquez called.

Sweet sanctuary. "Gather what you need. We have less than an hour before we're leaving," I said as I broke away from our brief conference.

No one tried to stop me.

* * *

When we left, it was quiet. A tumbleweed blowing down the street wouldn't have surprised me.

Inside the cars, it was calm. While the king and queen, the second-in-command and his wife, the princess and her guard, and an extra royal guard, shared my vehicle, Vasquez driving and me riding shotgun with the radio constantly in my hand, I expected the silence between everyone in the car. I expected to be giving orders, for my eyes to be darting behind my dark sunglasses, for the heavy noon sun to cast a fiery gild over the sand and stone out into the desert. I expected to feel distantly uncomfortable, as I had for the past day already, as I did my job under the sight and hearing of people I knew five years ago. I expected weirdness of the alien I had sex with the night before being one of our passengers.

I did not expect the checkpoint to signal for us to slow. For a vaguely familiar face—Agent Nunez—to show under the cap.

He wasn't assigned here. And he was on Sully's list of Pierce-affiliated suspects.

I glanced at Vasquez. By the tension in her jaw, I saw that she remembered too. And when her eyes darted to the rearview mirror, I realized that if we panicked the Antarians, things could get messy.

We had a few options. But I already knew which one we had to take. Hidden by the backrest, close to my lap, I flattened my palm in a signal to pull over.

Her lips pursed as she slowed the SUV's approach to the barred road. To her credit as a trained agent, she did not hesitate. Only her grip on the wheel betrayed her displeasure. Behind their tinted glasses, her eyes were steely. I nodded once as I slipped the seatbelt from my shoulder. "Keep the motor running."

As I opened the door, she said only, "Ma'am."

The door closed loudly behind me.

I cast a glance at the second SUV of our party. Halin climbed out of the passenger side, nodding to me, both of us skirting around the front of our respective cars. I left my sunglasses on, pushing the sides of my suit jacket behind my hips to showcase my badge and gun. Halin placed himself slightly behind me.

The wind tugged at my loose hair as I eyed Agent Nunez from behind my glasses. There were fewer agents here than assigned, standing at attention or conversing quietly at the physical roadblock of plywood and orange traffic cones. I did not recognize all of them by name, but the faces were on file folders. All had been labeled suspicious.

How had they known this was the exit we'd take? Maybe they didn't. Maybe we were just unlucky. But Pierce was smart. I had to give him some credit.

* * *

A swinging arm caught the edge of my vision. I hit the dirt the same time the shot rang.

Halin hit the dirt, too, but didn't get back up.

I did.

* * *

The fight was a blur—sweeping legs, flailing arms, a knee in the stomach and a punch to the eye socket—but I remember one shining crystal minute.

I could hear car engines revving, my bullet shattering the weak plywood roadblock, and trained agents converging while some unknown hesitation stilled their guns. And I saw a face behind tinted glass, a hand pressed, clenched, trying to break reinforced bulletproof the old human way.

I remember my hand flinging in non-lethal motion, a "Leave!" of flickering fingers.

And after that moment, a blur of two cars and the pounding of feet and, painfully sharp to quick dull, the sight of cars carrying Antarians disappearing into dust, turning into blackness spread from the back of my skull.

* * *

This is what happened while I was away:

Vasquez shouted down her Antarian passengers as they drove away from the scene. Max tried to use his powers. Michael subdued him, speaking in gritted-teeth logic. In the second car, my parents cried. Tess and Maria's mother figure were the only two to turn and see me fall. They separately elected to keep silent, a nugget of pain shielded from those for whom the news would be devastating.

They made it to the safe house in Galinas, an abandoned silver mine with hidden tech built into supposedly rough exterior. Provided with rooms and food, the protected were more or less imprisoned as they waited for the Director to arrive.

He came. He spoke both of his names to Max. There was an emotional alien reunion, all blustering gestures and exasperated smiles and weary sighs. Larek explained, Brody reassured.

The two main men in my life talked about bringing me home. The agents who remained in Roswell sent a message to Vasquez, who reported immediately that I had been sighted in town.

It would have been hard for him. But Larek was a strategic thinker. He hesitated to send anyone in—but in the end, he had no choice. Not when Max became infuriated enough to escape even Michael and Isabel, stealing a car and heading back to the city alone. They had to chase the king and thus, also rescue a senior agent.

And nothing could have stopped them from coming, not even the certainty that it was a trap.

* * *

This is what happened while I was away:

I woke to stars burning in space. My head and shoulders ached. Dirt crusted on the back of my neck. I turned, dazed, propped against stone. My wrists and ankles were bound. I catalogued the silence of the night air, the scent of dirt and rock lacking water, uneven edges under my thighs.

Then I tilted my head to watch the lookout hunched on rocks above.

Pierce took stock of our surroundings, a thin breeze ruffling his thick hair. Suit torn, stained with rusty blood from other bodies, he looked right back down at me. "You took out most of my men."

"They were traitors."

He laughed and slid down from his height, careful of his gun's angle. "We both know who the real betrayer is here—you're with those fools who are letting the aliens camp in our own backyard. You're actually protecting them. So silly, for a little girl with Stockholm."

My chin tipped to the right. Our security would need an overhaul if he had figured out so much. So I kept him talking, got him to admit to some of the spies Sully had already quietly tagged, others we could have missed. And he mocked my old, confessed sense of being an outsider in Roswell, called my parents kidnappers and my community subhuman. They were nothing more than taunts, but they set my blood boiling.

Finally, I asked, "Why am I here?" He had everything he needed. He'd be moving in to set those weapons off, determined that if he couldn't go back he may as well go forward into oblivion.

"You're coming back with me," he said, eyes shining with a reflection of outer space. "Alien's whore. He'll come after you—they're possessive bastards."

I recalled what Max said before I left Roswell five years ago. The way he behaved towards me now. Perhaps that was an accurate word to use. I also recalled my gut reaction to Tess being a foot away from him. Possessive. The emotion seemed pretty human to me.

But I was unable to respond, for his radio crackled with a short burst of code. He grinned down at me, and the butt of the rifle encompassed my view.

* * *

When I next tenderly touched the stiff blood on my lip, I was alone.

Something tugged me out of unconsciousness, a pull identified but just beyond the reach of description. My eyes flickered open to the ceiling of the city hall conference room.

The place we first found him, a place he'd spent time taunting the aliens: I just thought he would never have rigged the building he was standing in. I was left here as insurance, bait, so he could take out the aliens and the girl who'd fucked one of them. A desperate agent who had nothing left to lose, not even his own life, would be right next to the explosives setting them off.

Not in this lifetime. I learned to fight, but my feet were born knowing how to run.

Between the echoing silent spaces in my rattled hearing, I could hear bouncing noise through the door. The racket was obscene. Unbelievable damage was being done outside: gunshots, wood shattering, scrapes like thrown tiles and burning rubber.

Something was happening in Roswell and I couldn't let my agents handle it by themselves. Shoving Max's face out of my mind's eye, I rolled off the table and landed hard on my knees.

Then I clung to air, arm clasped to my side, gasping at unexpected pain.

As my fingers brushed through the gap in my suit jacket, I felt the warm stick of a bloody shirt. Hunched on all fours, I curved my back enough to peek down at my side. There was a gash curving along my lower ribs, not a puncture but a slash. Knife. Fire flared when I moved, but my touch told me it might be shallow. I pressed a hand hard to staunch the flow and whimpered at the white heat.

False hope retrieval. I knew this trick.

* * *

Pierce's eyebrow arched, immaculate as the steel doors of the office. "He wanted to be certain he would win. So they went in, thinking they could save her from one danger—but he'd already made sure she would die. Brutal, suicidal, but accomplishing exactly what he wanted." He raised the coffee cup to his lips. "So, Agent Stone," he smiled at me, "What's the worst that you've seen?"

* * *

There was a gun strapped to my ankle. He never knew that about me. I moved it to my hip holster. He was too arrogant to pat me down, too certain of his victory over the alien menace.

I had to get outside. I remember the desire, pulsing like a need. Throbbing like certainty. Outside, now.

I wondered when it had become personal as I stumbled to the door, one arm outstretched and the other holding my blood under my skin. Pierce made me the representative, the epitome of all traitors, how dare a human sleep with an alien. Clearly he had bought my bait, to know that detail. The Antarians had become everything evil to him, because he couldn't find something else to hate.

Sanity was where logic lay.

I collided with the corridor wall, then doorframe, a brittle grip on the handle finally letting my eyes see. Aching bones held steady under the visual onslaught.

The street was mostly cleared, only a few agents throwing their lot in on either side, shooting to kill. A shimmering green shield, flung up against every incoming projectile, Max behind it, motionless under constant barrage, the green starting to flicker and fade in small gaps. A Jeep with the core Antarian command careening around the corner, Michael raising a hand to deflect gunshots.

Pierce in prominence, too close to Max's shield. Gun pointed at his head. Again.

An unknown pressure had brought me outside, and once I saw whatever the force needed me to see, it coalesced into wrath.

Fire spread from my heart down my arm, twisting my elbow up and snapping the muscles strong. I cleared the doorway, I breathed in, I looked around the small dots swimming in my eyes, and I squeezed the trigger.

* * *

Pierce wasn't paying attention to the hall where he left his hostage damaged. Too many agents were pinned, at a bad angle to aim at either human or alien. The cavalry was a beat too far.

I looked at Max, whose body I knew and wanted to know, whose soul I felt and wanted to feel, whose entire being was the subject of my growing love.

Maybe it had to be me, manifesting to reaper, to protect not just a fragile new love but my friends and their home.

My home.

* * *

Pierce collapsed with a bullet in his skull.

The Antarian cavalry knocked down the enemy agents with bursts of power, leaving them to my agents.

I stood at the top of the city hall steps, gun arm shaking as it lowered to my side. Max rose. I thought, or imagined, that the crease between his eyebrows deepened as he saw me alive and moving. The blood was concealed by my dark jacket and pants: only the white field of my shirt would show that blossom. One hand pressed on the outside of my jacket, pressure on the wound.

The mirage of the heated pavement was rising into a kaleidoscopic sun. As if drawn into the bullet, my need to be out in Roswell's streets faded when I fired.

I recall slipping, though perhaps it was that the stairs slid underneath me. I felt sharp pain in my knee and shin, my lower back and arm, and curled with strange ridges along my side. I saw red smeared up the edges of the steps like a brush stroke of paint. My hand had come loose from gripping my side and it was stained in swirls like the sea.

Eyes deep as an ocean. That's what I remember. And a voice pleading.

"Liz, you have to look at me. Liz. Liz! _Look at me_."

* * *

I did.

I trusted Max. Even fuzzy as I was, I trusted him enough to follow his orders.

* * *

When it was happening, I didn't register what it meant. My memories are so vague, though I recall enough to know that I was bone-deep weary.

But what happened, was that Max healed me. He made me look into his eyes and opened a connection, made a bond that I felt in my soul. It was emotional, pain and fear and loss and hurt and rage and desperation and sadness. And I wanted to replace that bog, that sinkhole, with happiness and serenity, but I settled for reciprocating and encouraging a deeply-rooted love.

My eyes locked on Max's. The world tunneled to just him and me, then expanded again as my mind cleared of the pain and was submerged in the fuzziness of blood loss.

Freed of pain, I felt trembling hands on my shoulders and the sun's heat and a faint wisp of wind on my scalp.

* * *

I truly woke up with the lingering aroma of day-old pizza and generic detergent. Opening my eyes to the dimly lit motel room, I was almost surprised to see Vasquez and the Director waiting for me.

Larek would know when I was most likely to wake, even if alien-human healing was unprecedented. That was just Larek.

We exchanged pleasantries, I demanded details, they told me everything that had happened while I was physically and mentally away. My healing happened early in the afternoon the day before and my body took a night to replenish my blood supply and rest. The explosives were taken away during the night, returned to the military base. Sully had begun shuffling through the agents to discover who was in which category: ally, foe, or oblivious. Tourists had been fed a cover story, leaving out the alien bits of a story about a government consultant who went off the deep end. And the Antarians had been slowly getting back to normal.

Vasquez took her leave, carrying with her to our base of operations the knowledge of my consciousness. And when we were alone, Larek asked what my plans were now.

I looked away. A bullet entering a man's head floated in front of my eyes: when it happened, I had enough clarity to store that in my memory. "There are reports to file, paperwork, I need to balance the budget—"

Brody waved his hand, the gesture careless. A genial smile came to his lips, the faint markers that distinguished this mind from the alien presence. "Plenty of other agents, others much less talented than you, can handle the mundane necessities. In fact, duckling, let's save you the trouble of coming up with more excuses. Nothing at headquarters requires your immediate attention." His head tipped to one side. "Nothing requires it at all, actually."

My throat felt scrubbed raw. "Are you…firing me?"

He laughed. "Hardly," he said, eyes piercing, and my back straightened automatically as Larek said, "I want to set up an outpost in-town, with the king's permission. A more direct line of contact is necessary now that Zan knows about his Earthen allies."

Suspicions had fluttered in the back of my mind when it became clear that Safeguard could no longer remain on the fringes. Events cascaded so quickly that I had no time to think about the implications I had noticed, before an offer was set out on the table so glaringly between us.

"Well, Liz?" The chair creaked as my boss shifted his weight, relaxing into Brody again. "I've found an office, and a deposit is already down for a nice little one-bedroom apartment within walking distance. Comes with a decent pay raise. You could continue your research through the much more prestigious state university campus nearby. I can talk to people for you."

Bedsprings creaked as I stood and paced to the window. My dress pants felt uncomfortably creased, sweat dried, blood-stained shirt scratching my skin. Preservation of modesty, I suppose: no need for a doctor to remove my clothes when I was healed by an alien. My rumpled outsides matched my insides.

Flicking the curtain aside with one hand, I peered down at the parking lot. It teemed with agents, our former base of operations abandoned. A couple hours from now, the SUVs would be heading out of town and back to headquarters. Larek-Brody would be with them. Vasquez. Sully.

Would I?

* * *

Either.

Give up my life at our secret base on the outskirts of a busier city in New Mexico. Choose to leave: the comfort of a desert city full of strangers; the familiarity of an office I had carved out my own place in; the ability to do research through the satellite campus of the state university system; my anonymity and prestige, my coworkers, a life I built on my own.

Or.

Give up my life in Roswell and return to Safeguard. Choose to leave: the comfort of a desert city full of aliens; the familiarity of the streets I walked all my life as I grew up; the ability to do research through a different campus in a bigger state university system; my family and old friends, the chance to head a field office, a life I left behind once already.

* * *

I saw Antarians lingering on the edges of the motel parking lot, watching agents pack the SUVs with all of our equipment. I saw a distinct lack of several faces I hoped to see again.

It was the kind of decision a person shouldn't make if they have been unconscious for a number of hours. It was the kind of decision a person needs to sleep on, not make within the coming three hours of their life. It was the kind of decision which should be weight carefully against all options, the pros and cons lined up, everything stacked in neat little boxes, tic-tac-toe.

Turning from the window, I answered Brody's question.

The corners of his eyes crinkled.

* * *

On my inhale came the aromas of lemon-scented cleaner mixed with a deep fryer. A small bell tinkled from the inner handle of the door, but my presence had long been spotted through the sparkling glass of the Crashdown.

I saw precisely what I was walking into before I finished crossing the street: a relatively empty restaurant, Maria leaning on the counter into the kitchen to harass Michael, my father at the cash register and my mother coming through the back door. A few other people were there, just customers, but not the one I had hoped the most to see.

It wasn't as if I could expect him to keep the same routines I remembered from high school. Of course he wouldn't be at the Crashdown for breakfast every morning. He probably had things to do, now that the invasion of government agents was presumed over.

My dad stood up from his comfortable seat as I pulled open the door. The creases around his eyes deepened. "Lizzie."

Just a few syllables could hold so much emotion. I had wondered if Larek kept my healed self away from my parents, or if they stayed away of their own volition. From the relief on my dad's face, I knew the answer.

"I'm fine, Dad." Reaching over the counter, my hand met his halfway. "No one else was hurt." The reports said that. Reports could lie.

He nodded.

Having walked while we spoke, my mother's grip on my arm almost blindsided me if not for my sense of spatial awareness. And I turned into her hug, no longer denying myself the brief comfort. A moment later, I felt my father's arms surround us both.

The mission was over, the threat had been contained, and I was allowed to be human in this lull before returning to active duty. To give and receive comfort as a person, which I couldn't allow my agents to see while I was at work: I had to be the stoic leader of my troops. I had to suppress emotion and be completely in control.

I had messed up during this mission. Sleeping with Max shouldn't have happened, for a lot of reasons: my room was under surveillance and some agents may have caught a glimpse; it had impacted my compartmentalization; neither of us had any clue how alien energy or bodily fluids might interact with a human body. I had a few clues—the only descriptions I had for the experience were 'celestial', 'out-of-this-world', 'amazing'. It was highly unusual for new lovers to avoid awkward fumbling, let alone manage a perfect encounter that seemed out of a romance novel. And the images I had seen of Antar proved a psychic connection had been made.

That connection's length and depth were unknown, but I also remembered the strange tug that pulled me off the ground when I had been stabbed. My need to be outside at just the right moment to save Max…

Pulling back from my parents' arms, I smiled to reassure them. My mother took my face between her palms, delicately, as if afraid to crush my head, as if I would tear away without warning. "Young lady," she croaked, cleared her throat, began again. "Young lady, you have always and you will always belong with us."

My cheeks felt very hot. "I know." He would have said something. I should have realized. "I need to speak to him, actually." Before I could ask for the phone, my father offered. I accepted.

Taking one of the booths, and avoiding the eyes of other customers, my fingertips traced the cover of a menu I'd snagged at the register. They had changed it, the cover. Same general alien imagery and graphics, but the design had changed. And the specials—I recognized, with a jolt, something Michael had thrown together for me on a slow night, a sandwich he'd called by my name.

There, in bold font: The Liz.

We had joked that night, that if it were a menu item we'd have to figure out a cheesy alien-related name. He argued that it could refer to multiple actresses or characters; I reminded him that our menu was specific. An impasse reached, a moment I thought would fade to memory. Yet it seemed that upon my departure, several people immortalized me in vague reference on the diner menu. I blinked away prickling salt-water.

I closed the menu just as a lurker, who wavered by the soda fountain and nervously made trips back—first for order pad, then for antennae—took a seat across from me. My eyes flickered up to Maria.

She looked the same, though I could tell she was older. Her hair had always wavered between short and long, but she seemed to have settled on a middle ground: under her chin, but above her shoulders. Her eyes were lined with makeup, but tastefully—neutral colors, accenting her light eyes. And those eyes shimmered with unshed tears while the corners of her mouth twitched and creases deepened.

My hand rested on the table between us, atop the menu. I left it there, almost reaching for her yet hesitant to truly do so. She placed hers on top. We sat. We stared.

The corner of her mouth finally twitched up. "Chica, you suck."

"It wasn't about you, or anyone," I said.

"Girlfriend had a few words to say." I smiled, remembering the day she'd christened Max with his new nickname. She shrugged. "I wish you could have told us."

"I tried. I was always shut down on the conspiracy front." My hand not resting under hers crossed my body, griping the table edge underneath my opposite elbow. "Maybe it wasn't fair to expect you all to know how big it was. I misunderstood some things, but I wasn't the only one who didn't get it."

Love was felt and seen and acted out in countless ways—but controlling another person looked the same to any eyes.

She nodded, head ducking shyly. "Yeah, there's a bit of xeno- prejudice. I didn't realize it until after you left, but it's probably always been there. This underlying assumption that humans are… Well, they didn't build spaceships and genetically recreate themselves, and they're in the process of destroying their planet with wars and pollution."

"That's true," I agreed. "And we're the ones who attacked this town. We are a little bit slow and violent and crazy." Her chin lifted, eyes peering through her lashes. "But we're also the ones who defended Roswell's right to exist. Many people are working to save our planet, now that we've learned we can't keep on the way we have. We're sharp and loyal and intelligent, too."

"You are," she said. We shared a smile. Her eyes slid over my shoulder, then back to my face. Her grin sharpened, wicked. "But in the realm of love, I think we're all equally messed up."

Her nonsensical diversion would have surprised me if not for the tingling. A small tickle in the back of my head, and I knew exactly why Maria rose to her feet chirping a request for my order. A faint bell's tinkle and steady footsteps intersected with my hands placing the menu in Maria's hands. "The Liz with a side of fries, please."

She laughed, pen curling careless loops on the order pad. "Anything else? A drink?"

"Yes, two Cherry Cokes. And," I paused, recalled the day of the week, "a Kirk combo with onion rings instead of fries."

Her smile was proud, like a mother watching her children play together without fighting. She left with a happy hum of approval, but if she had said anything I wouldn't have heard it. Because as she stepped away, Max slid into the seat she had vacated.

His eyes were sharp, scanning my body and face. The lines around his lips were deep. His clothes were rumpled, but at least he'd changed since I last saw him. The shadows under his eyes showed that whatever sleep he managed hadn't been enough.

"Hi, Max."

"Hi, Liz." He held his shoulders defensively, an inch closer to his ears than they would be if confident. He thought he knew what I was going to say.

* * *

I wanted to make it clear that I was in control of my life, now.

And that it didn't mean I didn't care about Roswell, or the people here.

It just meant that no one else could decide for me and without me.

* * *

I folded my hands atop the table, drawing my shoulder-blades back. The soreness of my back muscles eased into a familiar rigidity. "Thank you for coming. We're all pretty busy, but the Director has made some decisions you should be aware of."

Max nodded, the swing of his head tipping him into the role of king again. "He let us know your organization would be leaving this afternoon. I had wondered if that was truly going to be the end of it, but it seems he won't make me seek him out."

"You found out about him," I said. "He can't go back to watching over your settlement from the shadows." The crease between his eyebrows deepened and I hastened to add, "We can't be secret from Antarians anymore, though we will continue to operate under the eye of—and, in some cases, with willing participation from—the government."

"That's acceptable," he said slowly. His eyes scanned my face. "Preferable, in fact, because though I understand Larek's desire to protect us from ourselves—"

"Being kept in the dark kind of degrades trust," I finished.

He nodded. I took my soda from Maria's hands, refusing to look at her or anyone else in the café. The last tourist had blindly shuffled out the door and no new ones had entered, leaving the locals to eavesdrop unsubtly on our conversation. They had paid attention all my life while I was growing up. It was only to be expected now.

A brief silence reigned until Max asked, "What did he send you to say?"

"In the interest of establishing ongoing communication with your people, the Director wants to construct a field office in Roswell." He eased back, spine curving to match the seat back. "It will take a month to get up and running, barring any reservations you have about the starter crew. Any personnel make it through our background and psychic checks, but your local security force is welcome to run their own and veto any workers. We'd like to be a cooperative force. This is intended as supplemental security which brings to your people the advantages of our resources, reach, knowledge, and experience."

Max rested an elbow on the table, clearly deep in thought. The turn of his head brought Michael swinging a chair to the end of the booth. He had emerged from the back during my speech and now, emanating grill scents and sweat, he studied me.

The past few days had made an impression of Safeguard, and of me. He weighed it in his mind, and when Max nodded, he offered his opinion. "It's a good deal. If you're keeping your end of the bargain not to interfere with us."

I flushed as I remembered one of my more emotional statements. "Roswell is officially part of the United States. Unofficially, Larek is in the process of making it a secured, private entity, internal and classified to the public and most of the government itself. Regardless of whether it works out, Safeguard has no intention of disrupting the rule of any monarch," I reassured him. "Nor President, nor Parliament, for that matter."

Michael lifted an eyebrow. "Far reach."

"We draw agents from a global pool. Women and men with special talents, or who have demonstrated an acceptance for unusual situations," I said. "Or, like me, they were exposed and brought in to ensure—" Realizing too late what I was about to say, I briefly weight the benefits of cutting myself off. Their intent gazes made it clear that they wouldn't accept that action. "Protection."

"Protection from what?"

I avoided meeting Max's eyes, choosing instead to turn my glass between my hands. "Pierce wasn't new. He wasn't even the first." I could feel the heat of his glare. "We keep tabs on a lot of potential threats. That's the only reason something like this hasn't happened to Roswell before."

Michael muttered, "Larek left that out."

My lip curled up on one side, a fake grin. "He means well, but he doesn't seem to grasp the concept of transparency."

Max crossed his arms on the table. Michael straightened, and in response I did, as well. "We will discuss in council the extent to which Safeguard will be integrated into our community, but barring the particulars we welcome your presence."

"Excellent. You should know," I added, when Michael seemed about to stand and leave us, "that Larek's already contacted a realtor for office space on the corner of Main Street."

A flicker of a smile passed over Max's face and a few of my stomach butterflies stopped fluttering. "I should have remembered that about him," he said.

"At least I got him to agree that the supervising agent of the field office should make the rest of the decisions," I said. "If I hadn't, the wall paint would have been shipped an hour ago."

Michael laughed as he stood. "Controlling busybody," he said as he headed back to the kitchen.

My eyes met Max's. While a fond exasperation lingered on his lips, the corners of his eyes were already flattening out. "So, do you know who the supervising agent will be?"

The butterflies returned with a vengeance. My hands folded, unfolded, palms pressed to my thighs, re-folded. "Not yet," I said. "The position is currently being debated internally. You'll have some say of the nominees when the pool has been narrowed down further."

"Then is everyone leaving in a few hours?"

One the surface, he meant to ask if Safeguard would return to start up the field office later in the month. I heard what he wasn't really asking underneath—if I was leaving Roswell.

It seemed that the whole restaurant was waiting for that answer. I could practically hear everyone breathing, though it could have just been my own which sounded loud in my ears. Looking at him, I saw both hope and sadness. Acceptance of my choice. He clearly wasn't going to try and persuade me, but as our eyes met I knew he could tell that I saw his desires.

* * *

I felt that tug again in the back of my mind: it felt like awareness. It was the same as the first time I felt it. And suddenly, I understood: it wasn't mind control or emotional manipulation which led me to stand when I had a knife wound in my side.

It was me.

My senses told me that Max was in danger. And I was not willing to let it happen when I could do something about it. Our link told me where he was and that there was danger, but my body and heart told me that I could do something about it. That was why I stood. That was why I shot.

I was in control of my decisions. I could choose how to act.

* * *

A gentle smile on my lips served as his only warning. "I have to go with them back to headquarters."

Like a gust of wind blew through the café, a common held breath gushed out. Max's shoulders started to deflate.

Honestly. They had no patience.

"My work at the university has to be transferred to another scientist. I'll need to sort through our personnel files to choose my staff. And I have an obscene amount of paperwork." Max lifted his chin, eyes wider than I'd ever seen them. "Larek offered the raise, and I thought…maybe it's time to come home."

The inflation of energy in the room was so wild and sudden that I felt completely off-balance. Perhaps it was my link with Max, this newly-formed and fragile connection, which made my reception of Antarian subliminal communication slightly overwhelming.

But looking at his glowing smile across the table, I let myself be swept along with their joy.


	5. Lie beneath the stars at night

**Disclaimer**: I do not own any part of this series. Nor am I the intellect behind Bennie's fic _Conspiracy_.

**Summary**: Liz always knew a return to Roswell was in the cards. Five years after she left, Fate plucked that one from the deck. AU inspired by 'Conspiracy' (details inside).

**Author's Note**: Title for this chapter is from the song "Young Blood" by The Naked and Famous.

* * *

…

_Lie beneath the stars at night (Promises, swear them to the sky)_

…

This was my story. No, our story.

It's one of refugees, who fled from devastation and settled in a small desert in New Mexico.

It's one of aliens who came to a little planet called Earth in search of nothing but a bit of air, a sip of water, and a place to rest.

And it's one of a human who found her home among them.

My journey to this understanding was a long one: I ran, doubting my place; I returned, determined to protect the memory; and then I stayed, having discovered that what I hunted for was in Roswell all along.

I helped protect them from an outside threat, and in the years since that first encounter Safeguard's Roswell office has expanded in cooperation with Antarian security. I've moved from my single apartment to a shared apartment to a small house. I've seen my best friend give birth to a daughter, and encouraged my other best friend to work on his music for pleasure even if he could never make a profit from it.

We also dealt with further government questions, a precarious blade hanging overhead. My field office was not always full of the most useful or trustworthy people. Tension between Antarians and humans occasionally spiked under outside pressure. The healing energy caused me to develop abilities of my own, after a terrifying transition period during which I had to seclude myself under Larek's supervision at Safeguard headquarters.

But through everything, my mother was there to offer comfort. My father always had a cup of tea and a listening ear. Maria and Alex would distract me with youthful remembrances and outrageous antics. I found Michael an oddly stable presence with whom silence provided a sense of peace, a space needed to get the tracks of my mind re-aligned.

And Max was there, always: laughing when I stumbled into the doorframe of our new apartment and later, as we slid on socks in our brand-new, still-empty house; tears in his eyes as he held me, early in my change, as electric sparks burned my skin from the inside out; helping set up my offices for Safeguard and in our living space, for my research through the university on desert flora and fauna; shoulders tensing and relaxing as we discussed having children, tighter than springs as I was in labor, soft and tender as he held our boy the first time.

Roswell grew and changed with us. I stepped up with my peers to be a community member and leader, as the older generations eased the reins into our hands. I felt pride as they placed their trust in me, honored to know my value in our community.

This was a story of a people who created a home somewhere new, in some ways different, but in all the important details exactly what we all needed.

My name is Liz Parker Evans. And I am happy.

* * *

…

_Extras and A Final Note_

…

Title-Taken Song List:

"Song of Los" by Apparat

"Bones" by MS MR

"Control" by Puddle of Mudd

"9 Crimes" by Damien Rice

"Keep the Streets Empty For Me" by Fever Ray

"Young Blood" by The Naked and Famous

* * *

Other Songs Inspiring the Author:

"Save Yourself" by Sense Field

"Believe" by Cher

"Now's the Only Time I Know" by Fever Ray

"One Thing" by Finger Eleven

"Remain Nameless" by Florence + The Machine

"Bleeding Out" by Imagine Dragons

"Wonder" by Lauren Aquilina

"Babel" by Mumford & Sons

* * *

This story has been in the works for a few months, in between classes and work and my original-story writing. Hopefully the time and effort I put into shaping this story showed. I want to give another shout-out to Bennie, without whose work this idea would never have been sparked into a full story. If anyone can put us in contact with each other, I would greatly appreciate it.

I hope you have enjoyed reading as much as I have enjoyed writing. Feedback of all sorts is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for continuing through to the end.

~ Sweetbriar


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